
Class ^BX-ll-^ 
Book. J4_2. 

Copyright }1° 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Cliurcli of God 
on Trial 

BEFORE THE TRIBUNAL OF REASON 



BY 

EDWARD J. MAGINNIS 

OF THE SCHUYLKILL COUNTY BAR, PA 



$ 



NEW YORK 

CHRISTIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION PUBLISHING 

COMPANY 

26 BARCLAY STREET 



1905 



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J. F. LOUGHLIN, S.T.D., 

Censor Librorum. 



>h PATRICK JOHN RYAN, 

Archbishop of Philadelphia, 



This is an admirable work. I trust it will be spread 
broadcast over the country in millions of copies. 

J. F. LOUGHLIN, S.T.D. 

Censor, 



COPYXIGHTBD, I905. 
BY 

CHRISTIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



DEDICATION 

THE SPOTLESS MOTHER OF THE DIVINE 
CHILD, UNDER THE MANTLE OF WHOSE 
CARE I HAVE TAKEN REFUGE IN MANY A 
SORROWING MOMENT, THIS LITTLE BOOK 
IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED. 

Feast of the Annunciation, 
March 25th, 1905. 



CONTENTS. 



Chaptir page 

Authorities Quoted 7 

Preface 9 

Indictment 10 

Opening Address 11 

I. The Church of Christ Stands Forever 17 

II. Councils of the Church 31 

III. Pope, or Chief Bishop 42 

IV. Sacred Scriptures 57 

V. Tradition (Apostolical) 67 

VI. Original Sin and Baptism 77 

VII. Confirmation 91 

VIII. Eucharist 101 

IX. Communion in One Kind. . . 115 

X. The Mass 120 

XI. Penance 131 

XII. Confession 137 

XIII. Absolution 148 

XIV. Indulgences 156 

XV. Extreme Unction 162 

XVI. Holy Orders 164 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

XVII. Matrimony 176 

XVIII. Mother of God 186 

XIX. Saints 193 

XX. Fasting 204 

XXI. Relics and Images 208 

XXTI. Purgatory and Prayers for the Dead 214 

XXIII. Continency 221 

XXIV. Faith 234 

Closing Address 241 



AUTHORITIES QUOTED, AND NUMBER OF TIMES. 

Holy Scriptures 146 

Lactantius (b. 260 c— d. 328 c.) 1 

Origen (b. 185— d. 254) 5 

Jerome (b. 340— d. 420) 6 

Cyprian (b. 200— d. 258) 12 

Clement of Alex. (b. 193— d. 211) 1 

Optatus (4th century) 1 

Council of Zerta (354—430) 1 

Irenaeus (b. 130— d. 202) 8 

Chrysostom (b. 347— d. 407) 9 

Boniface (b. 680— d. 755) 1 

Tertullian (b. 150 c— d. 230 c.) 7 

Ignatius (b. 70 c— d. 116) 2 

Augustine (b. 354— d. 430) 11 

Hilary (b. 295 c— d. 368) 3 

Eusebius (b. 270 c— d. 342) 2 

Basil (b. 330— d. 379) 3 

Epiphanius (b. 320 c— d. 402) 4 

Fabian (Supreme Pontiff) 1 

Maruthas (b. 375 c— d. 425 c.) 1 

Justin the Martyr (b. 105 c— d. 155 c.) 2 

James of Nisibis (b. 320 c— d. 382) 1 

7 



8 AUTHORITIES QUOTED. 



Cyril of Jerusalem (b. 315— d. 386) 

Gregory of Nyssa (b. 331— d. 396) 

Ambrose (b. 334— d. 397 

Grotius (Protestant) 

Gaudentius of Brescia (b. 360— d. 437 c.) 

Clement ( — d. 101) 

Barnabas (Apostolical Father) 

Pacian (b. 340— d. 390 c.) 

Ephraem (b. 306— d. 373) 

Athanasius (b. 294— d. 373) 

Hermas (Contemporary of Paul) 

Nilus (b. 396— d. 430 c.) 

Siricius (b. 324— d.398) 

Bucer (Disciple of Luther) 

Luther 

Magus 

Calvin 

Szydlovius 



PREFACE. 

It is apprehended that the long and thorough 
preparation required of candidates for the Catho- 
lic priesthood, eminently qualifies them to be the 
sole teachers of religious truth. The lay author, 
or compiler, of this little volume, therefore, dis- 
claims an intention to exercise the priestly pre- 
rogative, his purpose being merely to perform in a 
novel way a duty which should be common to all 
defenders of the faith. If the evidence and argu- 
ments herein adduced awaken a desire for the 
whole truth in one not of the Catholic fold, he or 
she will turn for enlightenment to the instruc- 
tions of those whom God has ordained to " teach 

all nations." 

E.J. M 



THE INDICTMENT. 

Protestants, in order to justify their secession 
from the Catholic Church, affirm, that before their 
Reformation (Book of Homilies, Peril and Idol- 
atry, parts, page 251, London, 1687) : "Laity and 
clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and 
degrees of men, women and children, of whole 
Christendom, have been at once drowned in 
abominable idolatry — and that for the space of 
eight hundred years and more." And, again, 
"The Christian religion was, unto the time of 
Constantine (A. D. 324), most pure and indeed 
golden." 



OPENING ADDRESS. 

Our Lord Jesus Christ is perfect ; everything 
He does is perfect — else He would not be Divine. 
For the physical and animal worlds He has in- 
stituted the laws of nature ; for the social and 
spiritual worlds He has prescribed moral and 
spiritual laws, which are both comprehended 
under the name of religion. In the study of 
physics and biology, and the like, though man 
must rely wholly upon his physical observations 
for his knowledge, he is generally agreed as to 
the science of things. But in theology and re- 
ligion, where he has the personal revelations of 
his Creator to instruct him, and the guidance of 
the Holy Spirit to save him from error, mankind 
is almost hopelessly disrupted. The reason for 
this awful discordance in the understanding of 
the laws which God has prescribed for the salva- 
tion of men's souls, can only be attributed to the 
work of the Prince of Darkness whose pleasure 

11 



12 OPENING ADDRESS. 

it is to darken the intellect and weaken the faith 
of men and thus dispel the Light of Truth from 
their minds. Happily, there is a light within 
each one of us, which can penetrate those clouds, 
and which if followed in the spirit of prayer and 
humility — the characteristics of sincere search, 
shall eventually lead to a realization of the true 
faith. Just as we know and believe that the laws 
of nature are eternal and unchangeable, so too we 
should believe that whatever religion Christ has 
established on earth for the moral and spiritual 
guidance of the human family, is perfect and im- 
mutable. As in science new principles may be 
unfolded, or old ones be developed and better un- 
derstood, it is possible that our knowledge of re- 
ligious truths may be expanded or more clearly 
defined ; but these facts in nowise imply a change 
or conflict of positive laws, or that new laws or 
dogmas may be added thereto. For examples : 
fallen bodies are attracted towards the center of 
the earth, is a law of physics, a natural law, and 
no evolution of science can ever change it or sus- 
pend it ; and mortal sin incurs damnation, is a re- 
ligious truth, which no reformation of creeds can 



OPENING ADDRESS. 13 

soften or disprove. Science and religion are like 
two giant trees, they grow and develop and con- 
tinue to yield new fruit, but their trunks and 
roots cannot suffer change. The tree which 
Christ planted still lives and grows ; its shelter- 
ing branches shall continue to reach out until 
they cover the whole world, and until the end of 
time it shall draw support and sustenance from the 
same infallible source. In a word, there is in the 
world to-day a church or denomination among the 
seven hundred divisions of Christianity, which is 
in possession of the religion that was handed down 
by the apostles ; the rest are heretical. All can- 
not be right ; for truth never conflicts with truth, 
and those various creeds are antagonistic to each 
other even in essential doctrines. There is no 
unity or harmony among them — except in one 
respect, the six hundred and ninety-nine protest 
against the One, the Church of Rome. They 
charge her generally with the Indictment found 
on a previous page. We now bring her for trial 
before the tribunal of reason. Dear Protestant 
readers, you may be the jury. Before you hear 
any of the evidence promise to lay aside all prej- 



14 OPENING ADDRESS. 

udices, all hatreds, and all bigotries, if you have 
any, as you would in the trial of a civil case, and 
try only to render an honest judgment. If per- 
chance you have been taught heretofore to de- 
spise the Church, remember that it is probable 
at least that you have learned to condemn her 
without properly having inquired into her real 
character. It may be that you have gotten your 
information from her pronounced enemies, who 
would be disposed to paint her in the blackest 
colors. She claims to be the One, Holy, Catholic, 
Apostolical, and Infallible Church of Christ ; and 
it is against these distinctions her assailants make 
most vigorous protest. However, she is prepared 
and willing at all times to be tried before the 
court of reason. Let only such testimony be ad- 
duced as cannot be objected to by either side of 
the controversy. And, first, we offer in evidence 
the Holy Bible, the inspired word of God, to 
prove that the Catholic articles of faith are those 
which were delivered to, preserved and handed 
down by, the Apostles. But whilst the Church 
teaches her children to accept the whole Book as 
being divinely inspired, Protestants, in general, 



OPENING ADDRESS. 15 

reject seven of the forty-six books of the Old 
Testament, to wit, Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Ec- 
clesiasticus, Barueh, and First and Second Macca- 
bees, and many of them regard the remainder of 
the Old Testament merely as an authentic record ; 
on account of which we will rely chiefly for our 
testimony on the text of the New Testament. 
(The annotations are by Rev. Dr. Challoner.) 
Next, as the Indictment charges that the prim- 
itive Church did not lose any of its pristine 
purity till some time between the fourth and 
seventh centuries, we will call onlj^ those Chris- 
tian writers who lived during a period when the 
Church is admitted by all to have been free from 
error ; for Protestants cannot consistently object 
to those writers. If they do object, there is but 
one alternative left to them, — that Protestantism 
is of human invention and had no existence until 
the sixteenth century. Whatever the Bible and 
the Church writers of the primitive ages say is 
the true Church of Christ, must be the only one 
ordained by God and the only one in which we 
have an assurance of salvation ; and if you, dear 
readers, are concerned about the future state, and 



16 OPENING ADDRESS. 

you do not have an abiding confidence in your 
present position, it behooves you to exercise the 
reason God has given you, to arrive at an honest 
verdict, an unprejudiced conviction. The Pa- 
pacy, the doctrine of Transubstantiation, and the 
sacrament of Penance, are the objects of bitterest 
assault and we shall therefore investigate most 
thoroughly their claims to Divine Institution. 
Call the first witness ! 



THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE CHURCH OF CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Catholic Church is the One, Holy, Roman, 
Apostolical, and Infallible Church of Christ and 
is to last forever. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Catholic Church errs in its living and 
manner of ceremonies and in matters of faith. 
And it is not the visible Church of Christ. — Art. 
XIX. (Of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Anglican 
Church.) 

TESTIMONY. 

St. Matthew xvi. 18 — "And I say to thee: 
That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will 

17 



18 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

build my church, and the gates of hell shall not 
prevail against it." 

" Thou art Peter," etc. As St. Peter, by di- 
vine revelation, here made a solemn profession of 
his faith in the divinity of Christ ; so, in recom- 
pense of this faith and profession, our Lord here 
declares to him the dignity to which he is pleased 
to raise him, viz. : That he, to whom he had al- 
ready given the name of Peter, signifying a rock, 
(St. John i. 42,) should be a rock indeed, of in- 
vincible strength, for the support of the building 
of the Church ; in which building he should be, 
next to Christ himself, the chief foundation- 
stone, in quality of chief pastor, ruler, and gover- 
nor ; and should have, accordingly, all fulness of 
ecclesiastical power, signified by the keys of the 
kingdom of heaven. 

" Upon this rock, etc." The words of Christ to 
Peter, spoken in the vulgar language or Aramaic 
of the Jews, which our Lord made use of, were 
the same as if he had said in English, " Thou art 
a rock, and upon this rock I will build my Church.'* 
So that, by the plain course of the words, Peter 
is here declared to be the rock, upon which the 



CHURCH OF CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 19 

Church was to be built; Christ Himself being 
both the principal foundation and founder of the 
same. Where also note, that Christ, by building 
his house, that is, His Church, upon a rock, has 
thereby secured it against all storms and floods, 
like the wise builder. (St. Matthew vii. 24, 25.) 

" The gates of hell, etc." That is, the power 
of darkness, and whatever Satan can do, either 
by himself, or his agents. For as the Church is 
here likened to a house, or fortress built on a 
rock ; so the adverse powers are likened to a 
contrary house or fortress, the gates of which, 
1. e. the whole strength, and all the efforts it can 
make, will never be able to prevail over the city 
or Church of Christ. By this promise we are 
fully assured, that neither idolatry, heresy, nor 
any pernicious error whatsoever, shall at any 
time prevail over the Church of Christ. 

St. Matthew xxviii. 20 — "Teaching them to 
observe all things whatsoever I have commanded 
you ; and, behold, I am with you all days, even 
to the consummation of the world." 

St. John xiv. 16, 17— « And I will ask the 
Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, 



20 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

that he may abide with you forever, — The Spirit 
of Truth, whom the world cannot receive; be- 
cause it seeth him not, nor knoweth him : but 
you shall know him ; because he shall abide with 
you, and shall be in you." 

" Paraclete." That is, a comforter, or also an 
advocate; inasmuch as, by inspiring prayer, he 
prays, as it were, in us, and pleads for us. 

" Forever." Hence it is evident that the Spirit 
of Truth was not only promised to the persons of 
the Apostles, but also to their successors, through 
all generations. 

The Church is the Kingdom of Christ, St. 
Luke i. 33 — "And of his kingdom there shall be 
no end." 

The House of the Living God, 1 Tim. iii. 15 — 
"But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know 
how thou oughtest to behave thyself in the house 
of God, which is the Church of the living God, 
the pillar and ground of the truth." 

" The pillar and ground of the truth." There- 
fore, the Church of the living God can never up- 
hold error, nor bring in corruptions, superstition, 
nor idolatry. 



CHURCH OP CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 21 

The Fold, of which Christ is the Shepherd, 
St. John X. 15, 16 — " As the Father knoweth me, 
and I know the Father : and I lay down my life 
for my sheep. — And other sheep I have, that are 
not of this fold: them also I must bring; and 
they shall hear my voice: and there shall be 
made one fold and one shepherd." 

The Body, of which Christ is the Head, Co- 
lossians i. 18 — " And he is the head of the body, 
the Church ; who is the beginning, the first born 
from the dead ; that in all things he may hold 
the primacy." Ephesians v, 23 — " For the hus- 
band is the head of the wife ; as Christ is the head 
of the Church. He is the Saviour of his body." 

The Spouse, of which he is the Bridegroom, 
Ephesians v. 31, 32 — "For this cause shall a 
man leave his father and mother ; and shall ad- 
here to his wife: and they shall be two in one 
flesh. — This is a great sacrament : but I speak in 
Christ and in the Church." 

Ever subject to him, and ever faithful to him, 
Ephesians v. 24 — " Therefore, as the Church is 
subject to Christ; so also let the wives be to 
their husbands in all things." 



22 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

" As the Church is subject to Christ." The 
Church, then, according to St. Paul, is ever obedi- 
ent to Christ ; and can never fall from Him, but 
remain faithful to him, unspotted and unchanged 
to the end of the world. 

Ever loved and cherished by Him, Ephesians 
V. 25, 29 — " Husbands, love your wives, as Christ 
also loved the Church, and delivered himself up 
for it. — " For no man ever hated his own flesh ; 
but nourisheth and cherisheth it, as also Christ 
doth the Church." 

The Church is always one, Ephesians iv. 4, 5 — 
" One body, and one Spirit ; as you are called in 
one hope of your vocation, — One Lord, one faith, 
one baptism." 

Always visible, St. Matthew v. 14 — " You are 
the light of the world. A city that is set on a 
mountain cannot be hid." 

The " Reformation," Thess. ii. 3 — Let no man 
deceive you by any means : for unless there come 
a revolt first, and the man of sin be revealed, the 
son of perdition." 

" A revolt." This may be understood of a re- 
volt of many nations, from the Catholic Church ; 



CHURCH OF CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 23 

which has, in part, happened already, by the 
means of Mahomet, Luther, etc., and, it may be 
supposed, Avill be more general in the days of 
Antichrist {the man of sin,) 

Lactantius. — " The Catholic Church alone re- 
tains the true worship. This is the source of 
truth, this is the dwelling of faith." Inst. 1-4, c. 30. 

Origen. — " Let no one persuade, let no one de- 
ceive himself ; out of this house, that is, out of the 
Church, there is no salvation." — Hom. 3 in Josue. 

St. Jerome. — " I know the Church is founded 
on Peter, that is, on a rock. Whoever eateth the 
lamb out of that house is a profane man. Who- 
ever is not in the Ark shall perish by the flood." 
— Ep. 14 ad Dam. 

St. Cyprian. — " Unity cannot be severed, nor 
the one body by laceration be divided. What- 
ever is separated from the stock cannot live, 
cannot breathe apart: it loses the substance of 
life."— De Unitat. Eccles. 

St. Clement of Alexandria (Wrote 193 to 211). 
— " The ancient Catholic Church alone is one in 
essence, in opinion, in origin, and in excellence, 
one in faith." — Strom. 1. 7. 



24: THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

St. Optatus (a bishop of Milevis in the fourth 
century). — " You cannot deny that St. Peter, the 
chief of the Apostles, established an Episcopal 
Chair at Rome. This Chair was one, that all 
might preserve unity by the union which they 
had with it : so that, whoever set up a chair 
against it should be a schismatic and an offender." 
— De Schism. Donat. 

The Synodal epistle of the Council of Zerta, 
drawn up by St. Augustin, thus tells the Dona- 
tists : " Whoever is separated from this Catholic 
Church, however innocently he may think he lives, 
for this crime alone, that he is separated from the 
unity of Christ, will not have life, but the anger 
of God remain upon him." 

Cyprian. — "Can he who doth not hold the 
unity of the Church believe that he holdeth the 
faith ? 

He who opposeth and withstandeth the Church, 
who forsaketh the Chair of Peter^ upon which 
the Church is founded, can he trust that he is in 
the Church ? " — Tract, de unitate Ecclesiae Paulo 
post principium. 

Counsel. — The questions before us are these : 



CHURCH OF CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 25 

Is the Catholic Church One, Holy, Catholic, Apos- 
tolical, and Infallible ? For these are the marks 
by which the true Church may be kno^vn. 

There are more than 300,000,000 persons with- 
in the fold, who believe in the same doctrines, 
partake of the same sacraments, and are gov- 
erned by the same visible head on earth, the 
successor of the Chief of the Apostles, St. Peter, 
to whom Christ entrusted the care of His flock. 
What unity this ; of which no other society, re- 
ligious body, or government, affords such a strik- 
ing example. 

The Catholic Church is the church of the 
saints, the upbuilders of Christianity. It is an 
undisputed fact that no Protestant church has 
ever converted a pagan nation. " Go forth," says 
Christ, "and teach all nations; and behold I 
am with you all days even unto the consum- 
mation of the world." Faithfully has the Catho- 
lic Church been performing this mission since 
the precept was given to her. England, Germany, 
France, Spain, all were converted to Christi- 
anity by Catholic missionaries. A Catholic ex- 
plorer opened the western continent to civili- 



26 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

zation ; and Marquette and his sturdy co- 
workers brought the first tidings of the Saviour 
to the red man. 

The Church is holy, because she teaches that 
no sacrifice is too dear to make for the love of 
Jesus Christ, and because she has always main- 
tained a high standard of virtue by counselling 
her children to emulate the lives of the saints. 
Every precept of hers has been issued with a 
tender regard for the spiritual comfort of her 
children. No sinner is too vile to share in her 
tender solicitude. And at the crucial moment, 
when the soul of the dying is about to enter 
eternity, she leaves all else and hastens to the 
side of the afflicted to help him prepare for judg- 
ment. But hers is not only a spiritual solici- 
tude ; for the poor, the sick, the blind, the help- 
less, the wayward and the orphaned, she provides 
alms, supports hospitals, builds homes, erects 
schools, and establishes convents and hospices. 
There is no concern of man in which she is not 
interested. She has been rightfully called the 
mother of art, as she is of education, and she has 
given to science many of its brightest votaries. 



CHURCH OF CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 27 

She believes and teaches that faith without works 
is dead, and in this lies much of her strength. It 
is not enough for Catholics to believe in Christ ; 
they are obliged to hear Mass and the Gospel on 
Sundays and Holydays, to confess their sins and 
to do penance, to fast and to pray, to contribute 
to the support of charities, to be subject to the 
civil power, to educate their children in the 
truths of religion, and when possible to enroll 
themselves in some society, such as the Holy 
Name, St. Vincent de Paul, Sacred Heart League, 
Sodality, or Total Abstinence, which are all sub- 
ject to the spiritual direction of the pastors of 
the Church and working for the same end, viz., 
the uplifting of humanity. 

Catholic means universal. All the world over 
the Catholic religion is the same ; there is no 
difference of opinion with regard to doctrines, 
for these are truths revealed by God, and if we 
were to disagree as to what God has taught it 
would be self-evident that the Holy Ghost is not 
with us as promised. The Catholic faith is cer- 
tain, definite, and ascertainable. Some dogmas 
of faith may yet be authoritatively defined, but 



28 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

nothing can be added to the original deposit. 
With us there can be no revision of faith, such 
as frequently takes place in the Protestant 
churches, for the plain reason that the Catholic 
Church cannot err in matters of faith or morals. 
Christ Himself revealed to her the truths of 
His religion, wherefore a revision would not be 
short of sacrilege. 

The Catholic Church is apostolical, because 
she can trace her line of bishops back to the 
twelve Apostles, the reigning sovereign pontiff 
being a lineal successor of St. Peter, the first 
Pope or Bishop of Rome. She is also apostolical 
because she teaches the same doctrines that were 
enunciated by the original Apostles, which it is 
the principal purpose of this volume to show. 

She is infallible, because she has never had to 
modify or declare null an article or doctrine of 
faith or morals. 

Since the Light of Heaven illuminated the stable 
at Bethlehem, — amid the wrecks of empires, the 
dissolution of races, and all the social and politi- 
cal changes of nineteen centuries, the Catholic 
Church has come down through the endless 



CHURCH OF CHRIST STANDS FOREVER. 29 

wastes of time, professing the same doctrines, 
preserving the same unity, professing the same 
graces, and performing the same mission, that 
were authorized in the injunction of her Divine 
Founder : " Go forth and teach all nations ; and, 
behold, I am with you all days, even to the con- 
summation of the world ; " while of all the 
leaders opposed to her, from Simon Magus down 
to Luther, not a single one has been able to frame 
a creed for his followers, the articles of which 
have remained unaltered beyond his own life- 
time. 

But the Church was founded not by man but 
by the immortal God himself, who built it upon 
a most solid rock. " The Highest Himself, says 
the Prophet, hath founded her. Hence, she is 
called the inheritance of God." " The people of 
God, and the power, which she possesses, is not 
from man but from God. As this power, there- 
fore, cannot be of human origin, divine faith can 
alone enable us to understand that the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven are deposited with the 
Church, that to her has been confided the power 
of remitting sins, of pronouncing excommuni- 



30 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

cation, and of consecrating the real body of 
Christ : and that her children have not here a 
permanent dwelling, but look for one above. 
We are therefore bound to believe that there is 
One Holy Catholic Church." (Council of Trent.) 



CHAPTER II. 

COUNCILS AND GUIDES OF THE CHURCH. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

When the whole episcopate is convoked in a 
general or ecumencial council, to judge of matters 
of faith or doctrine, or to try any important ques- 
tion relating to faith, morals, or discipline, their 
decision when confirmed by the Pope is taken to 
be the will of God. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

General Councils may not be gathered together 
without the commandment and will of civil 
rulers : and when they be gathered together for 
as much as they be an assembly of men, whereof 
all be not governed with the Spirit and Word of 
God — they may err, and sometimes have erred, 
even in things pertaining unto God. — Art. XXI. 

TESTIMONY. 

Gathered in Christ's name, are assisted by 

31 



32 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Christ, St. Matthew xviii. 20 — " For when two or 
three are gathered together m my name, there I 
am in the midst of them." 

" There am I, etc." This is understood of such 
assemblies only, as are gathered in the name and 
authority of Christ, and in unity of the Church of 
Christ.— St. Cyprian (200-258), de Unitate Ec- 
clesiae. 

And by the Holy Ghost, Acts xv. 28—" For it 
hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us, 
to lay no further burden upon you than those 
necessary things." 

Their decrees are diligently to be observed by 
the faithful. Acts xv. 31 — " Which when they 
had read, they rejoiced for the consolation." 
Acts xvi. 4 — " And as they passed through the 
cities, they delivered to them the decrees for to 
keep, that were decreed by the apostles and 
ancients who were at Jerusalem." Acts xv. 41 — 
" And he went through Syria and Cilicia, con- 
firming the churches, commanding them to keep 
the precepts of the apostles and the ancients." 

Deuteronomy xvii. 8, 9 — " If thou perceive that 
there be among you a hard and doubtful matter 



COUNCILS AND GUIDES OF THE CHURCH. 33 

in judgment between blood and blood, cause and 
cause, leprosy and leprosy ; and thou see that the 
words of the judges within thy gates do vary : 
arise, and go up to the place, which thy Lord thy 
God shall choose. — And thou shalt come to the 
priests of the Levitical race, and to the judge, 
that shall be at that time : and thou shalt ask of 
them, and they shall show thee the truth of the 
judgment." 

"If thou perceive, etc." Here we see what 
authority God was pleased to give to the church 
guides of the Old Testament, in deciding, with- 
out appeal, all controversies relating to the law ; 
promising that they should not err therein : and 
surely he has not done less for the church guides 
of the New Testament. 

St. Matthew xviii. 17— "And if he will not 
hear them, tell the Church. And if he will not 
hear the Church, let him be to thee as the heathen 
and the publican." 

St. Luke X. 16 — " He that heareth you, heareth 
me : and he that despiseth you, despiseth me. 
And he that despiseth me, despiseth him that sent 
me." 



34 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

St John xiv. 16, 17, 26—" And I will ask the 
Father, and he shall give you another Paraclete, 
that he may abide with you forever, — The Spirit 
of Truth, whom the world cannot receive ; be- 
cause it seeth him not, nor knoweth him : but 
you shall know him ; because he shall abide with 
you, and shall be in you. — But the Paraclete, the 
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my 
name, he will teach you all things, and bring all 
things to your mind whatsoever I shall have said 
to you." 

" Paraclete." That is, a comforter, or also an 
advocate; inasmuch as by inspiring prayer, he 
prays, as it were, in us, and pleads for us. 

" Forever." Hence it is evident that this 
Spirit of truth was not only promised to the 
persons of the Apostles, but also to their succes- 
sors, through all generations. 

" Teach you all things." Here the Holy Ghost 
is promised to the Apostles and their successors, 
particularly, in order to teach them all truth, and 
to preserve them from error. 

St. John xvi. 13 — " But when he, the Spirit of 
truth, shall come, he will teach you all truth ; for 



COUNCILS AND GUIDES OF THE CHURCH. 35 

he shall not speak of himself : but what things 
that are to come, he will show you." St. John 
XX. 21, 22 — "And he said to them again : Peace 
be to you. As the Father hath sent me, I also 
send you. — When he had said this, he breathed 
on them and he said to them : Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost." 

Ephesians iv. 11, 13 — "And some, indeed, he 
gave to be apostles, and some prophets, and others 
evangelists, and others pastors and teachers, — 
Till we all meet in the unity of faith, and of the 
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, 
unto the measure of the age of the fulness of 
Christ." 

" Gave to the apostles. — Till we all meet, etc." 
Here it is plainly expressed, that Christ has left 
in His Church a perpetual succession of orthodox 
pastors and teachers, to preserve the faithful in 
unity and truth. 

Hebrews xiii. 7, 17 — "Remember your prelates 
who have spoken to you the word of God ; con- 
sidering well the end of their conversation, imi- 
tate their faith. — Obey your prelates, and be sub- 
ject to them. For they watch as being to render 



36 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

an account of your souls, that they may do this 
with joy, and not with grief : for this is not ex- 
pedient for you." 

1 John iv. 6 — "We are of God. He that 
knoweth God, heareth us : He that is not of God, 
heareth us not : by this we know the Spirit of 
truth, and the spirit of error." 

Counsel. — Among the early councils of the 
Church we might mention that assembled by St. 
Peter, his first pontifical act after the ascension, 
at which both the apostles and the disciples were 
present, to fill the place of Judas Iscariot. The 
bishops meet together with the pope, from time 
to time, to consult upon matters affecting the 
whole Church and to issue decrees and regula- 
tions. Every question of grave importance is 
usually considered in this way, and the decision of 
a majority of the bishops, when confirmed by the 
pope, becomes a law from which there is no appeal. 
Common sense dictates that the bishops of the 
church, assembled in general council, form the 
most intelligent and capable body to prescribe 
what shall be ecclesiastical law. The pope alone 
may by virtue of his office issue any decree with- 



COUNCILS AND GUIDES OF THE CHURCH. 37 

out a conference of the bishops, but in passing 
upon grave questions it is usual for him to sub- 
mit them first to an ecumenical council. Re- 
vealed religion pertains to things in the super- 
natural order ; while civil constitutions regard 
things and relations only in the natural order. 
It would be highly incongruous therefore for the 
state to have any voice or will in the councils of 
the Church. " Render to Csesar," saith our Lord, 
" the things which are Caesar's ; " by which in- 
junction He also meant, or at least implied, that 
the Church should retain that which is hers, by 
Divine right, viz., the free and unrestricted 
authority to teach all nations the truths of relig- 
ion. If, as alleged in Article XXL, the councils 
of the Church have erred even in things pertain- 
ing to God, how is infallibility to be infused into 
the conclusions of such assemblies by the agency 
of the state ? Christ did not seek the patronage 
of civil emperors but taught that " he who will 
not hear the Church let him be as the heathen 
and the publican." This leaves but one question 
to be answered, to wit, what was the deposit of 
faith which Christ left to His Church? And 



38 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

without leaving an authoritative head to answer 
this question for us, Christ's mission would be a 
failure ; for private judgment has hopelessly 
plunged the followers of the Reformers into a 
chaos of multiplying creeds. A reference, how- 
ever, to the foregoing scriptural text proves that 
Christ did provide for the preservation of His 
teachings. " For when two or three are gathered 
together in my name, there I am in the midst of 
them." " And I will ask the Father, and he shall 
give you another Paraclete, that he may abide 
with you forever, — The Spirit of Truths whom 
the world (and consequently, the civil powers) 
cannot receive; because it seeth him not, nor 
knoweth him : but you (the Apostles and their 
successors) shall know him ; because he shall 
abide with you, and shall be in you. — But the 
Paraclete, the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will 
send in my name, he will teach you all things, 
and bring all things to your mind whatsoever I 
shall have said to youP " I have yet many things 
to say to you : but you cannot hear them now. 
But when he, the Spirit of Truth, is come, he will 
teach you all truth." We cannot insist too strong- 



COUNCILS AND GUIDES OF THE CHURCH. S9 

ly upon this authority acting under the guidance 

of the Holy Spirit; without it religion would 

be reduced to a social formula, for by what 

human intelligence can we, poor mortals, who 

know not the how, why, or what of a single 

star, discover the inscrutable mind of the infinite 

God. 

In every kingdom some court is established 

for the settlement of doubtful cases : it is evident 
that the all- wise God must have instituted some 
such tribunal in His kingdom ; and this tribunal 
is the general assembly of bishops, for at his 
ascent into heaven he gave them the power to 
teach, and promised them immunity from error 
(Matt, xxviii. 18-20). Hence the expression of 
St. Cyprian : " The Church is in the bishops.^' 
Now since the bishops cannot always assemble 
together on account of their duties towards their 
particular diocese, some other tribunal must 
exist with power to give infallible decisions. 
This tribunal is the Pope speaking ex cathedra. 
The priests have not this power or this infal- 
libility secured to them, though their services 
are indispensable to the bishops in the carrying 



40 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

out of the teaching ofSce. Priests when present 
in the assemblies of bishops are so as counsellors, 
but without any deciding vote in the questions 
under consideration. So soon as the Church 
defines a question of doctrine, every one is bound 
before God to submit under pain of excommuni- 
cation. 

A general council is the assembly of the 
bishops of the world presided over by the Pope, 
but the general consent of the bishops all over 
the world, confirmed by the Pope, is also infal- 
lible : this may happen when the Pope asks their 
opinion on a question of doctrine or morals. 

A case of that kind happened in 1854. The 
Pope sent round to the various bishops of the 
world to ascertain the feeling of Christians at 
large as regarded the Immaculate Conception of 
our Lady. As nearly all the replies approved of 
the doctrine, it was solemnly defined as of faith. 
This consensus of the bishops, though living 
apart at the time, was infallible, because the Holy 
Spirit is not confined by limitations of place. 
Nor was this solemn declaration necessary; it 
was quite sufficient that all the bishops should 



COUNCILS AND GUIDES OF THE CHURCH. 41 

teach in the same sense in regard of any given 
subject to make that teaching infallible ; were it 
otherwise the Church would be capable of teach- 
ing heresy, or of falling away from truth. Hence 
the Vatican Council declares that not only must 
that be accepted which has been solemnly defined 
by the Church, but also whatever is proposed by 
the lawful and general teaching authority. (Vat. 
Coun., 3, 3.) 

A decree is called doctrinal when the Pope, 
making an infallible definition as teacher and 
guide of the Church, i3roposes to the universal 
Church a doctrine of faith or morals. 



CHAPTER III. 

POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Roman pontiff is the successor of St. 
Peter, Prince of the Apostles, and Vicar of 
Christ. His office is to govern the Church, and 
to decide what the original deposit, as we call 
it, of faith was, as committed by Christ to His 
apostles, and in making such decisions we be- 
lieve him to be infallible. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Civil magistrates should rule all estates and 
degrees committed to their charge by God, 
whether they be ecclesiastical or temporal, and 
restrain with the civil sword the stubborn and 
evil-doers ; and the bishop of Rome hath no 
jurisdiction in such matters. Art. XXXVII. 

TESTIMONY. 

St. Peter, by Christ's ordinance, was raised to 

this dignity, having also a Primacy not only of 

42 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 43 

honor but also of jurisdiction, St. Matthew xvi. 
18, 19, — " And I say to thee : That thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock I will build my church ; and 
the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. — 
And I will give unto thee the keys of the king- 
dom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt bind 
on earth, shall be bound in heaven : and whatso- 
ever thou shalt loose upon earth, shall be loosed 
in heaven." (See annotations. Chapter I.) 

St. Luke xxii. 31, 32 — "And the Lord said : 
Simon, Simon, behold, Satan hath desired to have 
you, that he may sift you as wheat ; — but I have 
prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not : and thou 
being once converted, confirm thy brethren." 

" But I have prayed for thee," etc. The danger 
of the temptation of fear was common to all the 
Apostles, and they equally stood in need of being 
aided by the Divine protection, since the devil 
desired to torment them all — to crush them all to 
death. Notwithstanding this, the care of Peter is, 
in an especial manner, undertaken by the Lord, 
and the faith of Peter in particular is prayed for ; 
as if the state of the rest would be more secure, 
should the mind of their prince be rendered in- 



44 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

vincible. In Peter, therefore, the fortitude of all 
is secured, and the aid of the Divine grace so 
arranged, that the firmness given by Christ to 
Peter, is by Peter conferred on the apostles. — 
Leo the Great, Serm. 3. 

St. John xxi. 15, 17 — "When, therefore, they 
had dinner, Jesus saith to Simon Peter : Simon 
son of John, loves t thou me more than these ? 
He saith to him : Yes, Lord, thou knowest that I 
love thee. He saith to him : Feed my lambs." 

"Feed my sheep." Our Lord had promised 
the spiritual supremacy to St. Peter : — St. Matt. 
XVI. 19 ; and here he fulfills that promise. (By 
" my lambs " is meant the laity ; by " my sheep," 
the clergy.) 

The foregoing texts in this and the previous 
chapters also prove Papal Infallibility. 

St. Matthew x. 2 — " Xow the names of the 
twelve Apostles are these : The first, Simon 
who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother." 

Acts V. 29 — " Peter then answering, and the 
Apostles, said : We ought to obey God rather 
than men." 

St. Irenseus, who had for his instructor in 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 45 

Christianity a disciple of St. John the Evangelist, 
says : — " We can enumerate those bishops who 
were appointed by the Apostles and their suc- 
cessors down to ourselves, none of whom taught 
or even knew the wild opinions of these men 
(heretics) =* =^ * However, as it would be tedious 
to enumerate the whole list of successions, I shall 
confine myself to that of Rome, the greatest and 
most ancient and most illustrious Church, founded 
by the glorious Apostles Peter and Paul ; receiv- 
ing from them her doctrine, which was aimounced 
to all men, and which, through the successions of 
her bishops, is come down to us. Thus we con- 
found all those who, through evil designs, or 
vainglory, or perverseness, teach what they ought 
not ; for to this Church, on account of its supe- 
rior HEADSHIP, every other must have recourse, 
that is, the faithful of all countries ; in which 
Church has been preserved the doctrine delivered 
by the Apostles." — Ad. Haeres. lib. 3. 

St. Cyprian, in speaking of the Catholic Church, 
says, — "which, imbued with the light of the 
Lord, sends forth her rays over the whole earth." 
When asked to name the center from which this 



46 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Catholic Light radiates, the same Saint points to 
Rome, to the Chair of Peter, and " the principal 
Church (as he says emphatically) whence the 
Sacerdotal Unity took its rise." — Ep. 55. 

Cyprian. — " Nevertheless that he (Christ) 
might clearly establish unity, he formed one see, 
and by his authority fixed the origin of this same 
unity by beginning from one. The Primacy is 
given to Peter that there might be exhibited 
one Church of Christ and one see." — De Unitat. 
Eccles. 

Jerome. — (In a letter to Pope Damasus) — "I 
am following no other than Christ, united to the 
communion of your Holiness, that is, to the Chair 
of Peter. I know that the Church is founded on 
that Rock." — Ep. 14, ad Damasum. 

Chrysostom. — " For what reason did Christ 
shed his blood ? Certainly, to gain those sheep 
the care of which he committed to Peter and his 
SUCCESSORS." — Tom. 5, lib. 2, Sacerdotio. 

In an epistle to Pope Stephen, St. Boniface, 
the Apostle of Germany, says : "If anything 
should be found, said, or done, by me, less skill- 
fully or unjustly, with a ready will and humility 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 47 

I declare myself desirous of being corrected by 
judgment of Rome." — Epist. xci. We quote the 
foregoing only to show the disposition of the man 
that converted Germany, St. Boniface, compared 
with that of him who led it away from the true 
faith, Luther. 

Tertullian. — " If you approach Italy you have 
there the Church of Rome, whose decisions and 
doctrines give to ours all their authority." — De 
Praescript. xxxvi. 

St. Ignatius. — Bishop of Antioch, the second 
from St. Peter, begins his Epistle, to the Ro- 
mans, — " Ignatius to the Church that is sanctified, 
which presides in the region of the Romans." 

St. Irenaeus. — Says, "that all churches of the 
world are to submit to the Roman Church." — 
Avers. Ilaeres. 

St. Jerome. — " However firm in good principle 
you may believe yourself to be, never lend an ear 
to any man who would speak to you of a faith 
which is not that of St. Peter, of whom the exist- 
ing Pope is the true and only successor." — Epist. 
ad Demetriad. 

St. Augustin. — " The Roman chair is the rock 



48 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

which the proud gates of hell do not conquer." — - 
In PS. cout. Part. Donat. 

Counsel. — As there were fifty-two popes, in 
succession, during the first four centuries, we will 
mention only those who occupied the Chair of 
St. Peter previous to the year 200. And to 
show that they all exercised the office of the 
Head of the Visible Church, we will cite a single 
one of the acts of supreme authority performed 
by each. We quote from one of the most authen- 
tic works extant, viz., "Artaud's Lives of the 
Popes " : — 

1 — St. Peter — A. D. 42. After the ascension, 
St. Peter assembled a council at Jerusalem, at 
which both the apostles and disciples were pres- 
ent. The object was to elect a successor to 
Judas, in the Apostolical college : Matthias was 
chosen. Suffered martyrdom. — Xovaes, i. 4. 

2— St. Linus— A. D. 67. Pope Linus, follow- 
ing a recommendation of St. Paul (1 Cor. xi. 5), 
ordered that women should never enter the church 
with uncovered heads. Suffered martyrdom. 

3~St. Anacletus^A. D. 78. This pontiff 
originated those pilgrimages to Rome, which 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP, 49 

since have been called Stations. Suffered mar- 
tyrdom. 

4 — St. Clement — A. D. 91. Clement appointed 
in Rome seven notaries, who were charged with 
the duty of collecting the Acts of the Martyrs, 
and registering them in the records of the 
Church. Suffered martyrdom. 

5 — St. Evaristus — A. D, 100. He ordered that 
marriages be celebrated publicly, and with the 
priestly benediction. Suffered martyrdom. 

6— St. Alexander I.— A. D. 109. It was he 
who ordered that the priests should celebrate 
but one Mass daily, which rule was observed 
until the papacy of St. Deodatus, in 615. Suf- 
fered martyrdom. 

7— St. Sixtus I.— A. D. 119. He was the first 
to direct that the chalice and the paten should be 
touched only by the sacred ministers. Suffered 
martyrdom. 

8— St. Telesphore— A. D. 127. This pontiff 
confirmed the observance of Lent, which Fast 
had come down by tkaditiox from the time of 
Christ, as stated by St. Ignatius, St. Jexomt, 
and Theophilus. Suffered martyrdom. 



50 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

9— St. Hyginius— A. D. 139. He settled the 
order of priority among the clergy, which has 
led to the supposition that he was the founder of 
the College of Cardinals. Suffered much for the 
sake of the Church. 

10— St. Pius I.— A. D. 142. Pius directed that 
converts from Judaism to the Catholic faith 
should be received and baptized. 

11 — St. Anicetus — A. D. 157. A great con- 
troversy arose between this Pontiff and St. Poly- 
carp, as to when Easter should be celebrated. 
Poly carp thought the fourteenth day of the March 
moon. Anicetus followed the tradition of St. 
Peter, which fixed the Sunday following the 
fourteenth day. The matter was decided finally 
(in harmony with St. Anicetus) by St. Victor, 
who assembled a council in Rome for this pur- 
pose. Suffered martyrdom. 

12— St. Soter— A. D. 168. The zeal of this sov- 
ereign pontiff obtained the important concession 
that Christians, merely as Christians, should not 
be condemned — that, unless charged with some 
distinct crime against the State, their Christian 
creed should not be imputed to them as a crime. 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 51 

13— St. Eleutherus— A. D. 177. At the re- 
quest of Lucius, king of that part of England 
which was subject to the Romans, this pope sent 
Fugacius and Damian into that island, to en- 
deavor to convert it to the Catholic faith. 

14_St. Victor I.— A. D. 193. St. Victor I. 
decided that common water might, in case of 
actual necessity, be used in baptism. Suffered 
martyrdom. 

Counsel. — You, Protestant friends, aflSrm that 
you are the sheep of Christ, and Christ said: 
" My sheep hear my voice ; and I know them, 
and they follow me." Hear, therefore, the voice 
of Christ saying to Peter and his successors : 
" Feed my lambs ; feed my sheep." Does not 
He who has intrusted the care of His flock to 
Peter and his successors, also desire His flock to 
be obedient to those charged with the office of 
administering food to them ? Obedience is im- 
plied by authority ; the latter cannot exist with- 
out the assent of the former, be it either a will- 
ing or enforced obedience. The granting of the 
Power of the Keys, and of the commission to 
feed His sheep and lambs, by Christ to Peter and 



52 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

his successors, carried with them the fullest au- 
thority, and by the very premises the faithful are 
obliged to submit to this authority. As citizens 
of the country we are compelled to obey whatever 
laws are enacted by the civil authorities ; this is 
requisite for the continuance of the state: and 
similar reasons affirm that the Church should 
have a living, authoritative head, whose decrees 
and enactments, when inspired by the Holy Ghost, 
must be freely accepted. This brings us to the 
question. Whom does the Holy Ghost preserve 
from error? The founders of Protestantism made 
it a fundamental principle of their religion that 
each shall learn what God has taught, through 
the medium of private judgment. If this doc- 
trine be true, every pseudo-minister, possessing 
the eloquence, sincerity and personal magnetism 
of a Dowie or Mrs. Eddy, has a perfect and indis- 
putable right to formulate his or her own doctrines 
from the Bible and thrust them upon the world 
as the creed of the Apostles. What blasphemy, to 
say that all those contradictory teachings are ex- 
pressions of God's truth. The sole fact that the 
several sects outside of the Catholic Church can- 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 53 

not unite upon a definite creed and cannot main- 
tain those which they originally professed, is 
proof conclusive to the rational mind that error is 
prevalent among them. Where, then, may we 
find a tribunal, a temporal organism, through 
which the Holy Ghost is forever teaching the 
truths of the Christian religion ? It is reasonable 
and expedient that such a tribunal does exist, and 
we ought carefully to examine every claim to 
this divine prerogative. And here let us remark 
a singular circumstance : in every age are found 
innumerable prophets who allege to be able to 
divine the future, to heal the sick, and to con- 
verse with the dead, by the aid of spiritual 
powers; yet but one person, the head of the 
Catholic Church, has ever professed to exercise 
the most necessary of spiritual powers, to teach 
all truth by the aid of the Holy Spirit whom 
Christ personally promised to send to abide with 
His Church till the end of time. It seems that 
Providence has specially provided that in this re- 
spect there shall be no false teachers. There 
have been almost three hundred popes, of different 
nationalities, and representing every type of 



54 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

human character, each supreme in his oflSce of 
teacher, and yet it cannot be shown that, within 
the recognized jurisdiction of their infallibility, 
they have ever abrogated or contradicted that 
which was previously settled in the Church as 
the law of God. 

Listen to the Fathers of the Church as they 
plainly tell us that there is one at the head of 
the Church who is supreme and absolute in his 
authority, and infallible in his teaching. St. 
Jerome speaking on this subject says that there 
is " One who is chosen, that, by the appointment 
of a head, all occasions of schism may be re- 
moved; (Contra Jovinian) and, to Damascus, 
« Let envy cease, let the pride of Roman ambition 
be humbled ; I speak to the successors of the 
Fisherman, and to the disciple of the cross. 
Following no chief but Christ, I am united in 
communion with your holiness, that is, with the 
chair of Peter. I know that on that rock is built 
the Church. Whosoever will eat the lamb out- 
side this house is profane : whoever is not in the 
ark of Noah shall perish in the flood." The 
same doctrine was, long before, established by 



POPE, OR CHIEF BISHOP. 55 

Sts. Irenaeus and Cyprian ; the latter, speaking of 
the unity of the Church observes : " The Lord said 
to Peter, I say to thee, Peter, thou art Peter, 
and upon this rock I will build my church : " 
he builds his Church on one ; and although, after 
his resurrection he gave equal power to all his 
Apostles, saying, " As the Father hath sent me, 
I also send you. Receive ye the Holy Ghost ; 
yet, to display unity, he disposed, by his own 
authority, the origin of this unity, which had its 
beginning with one, etc." Again, Optatus of 
Milevis, says : " It cannot be ascribed to igno- 
rance on your part, knowing, as you do, that the 
episcopal chair in which, as head of all the 
Apostles, Peter sat, was first fixed by him in 
the city of Rome, that in him alone may be pre- 
served the unity of the Church ; and that the 
other Apostles may not claim each a chair for 
himself; so that, now, he, who erects another, 
in opposition to this single chair, is a schismatic 
and a prevaricator. In the next place, St. Basil 
has these words : " Peter is made the foundation, 
because he says ; Thou art Christ the Son of the 
living God ; and hears in reply that he is a rock ; 



.56 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

but although a rock, he is not such a rock as 
Christ, for in Himself Christ is, truly, an im- 
movable rock, but Peter, only by virtue of that 
rock ; for God bestows his dignities on others : 
he is a priest, and he makes priests ; a rock, and 
he makes a rock ; what belongs to himself he 
bestows on his servants." Lastly St. Ambrose 
says : " Should any one object, that the Church is 
content with one head and one spouse, Jesus 
Christ, and requires no other ; the answer is 
obvious, for, as we deem Christ not only the 
author of all the sacraments, but, also, their in- 
visible minister ; (he it is who baptizes, he it is 
who absolves, although men are appointed by 
him the external ministers of the sacraments) 
so has he placed over his Church which he gov- 
erns by his invisible Spirit, a man to be his vicar 
and the minister of his power ; a visible Church 
requires a visible head, and, therefore, does the 
Saviour appoint Peter head and pastor of all the 
faithful, when, in the most ample terms, he com- 
mits to his care the feeding of all his sheep ; 
desiring that he, who was to succeed him, should 
be invested with the very same power of ruling 
and governing the entire Church." 



CHAPTER IV. 

SACRED SCRIPTURES. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Scriptures, in which are contained the 
Revealed Mysteries of Divine Faith, are undoubt- 
edly the most excellent of all writings ; they were 
written by men divinely inspired, and are not 
the words of men, but the word of God, which 
can save our souls, 1 Thess. ii. 13, and James i. 
21 ; but then they ought to be read, even by the 
learned, with the spirit of humility, and with a 
fear of mistaking the true sense, as many have 
done. This we learn from the Scripture itself ; 
where St. Peter says that, in the Epistles of St. 
Paul, there are some things hard to be understood, 
which the unlearned and unstable wrest, as they 
do also the other Scriptures, to their own perdi- 
tion, 2 Pet. iii. 16. To prevent and remedy this 

abuse, and to guard against error, it was judged 

57 



58 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

necessary at times to forbid the reading of the 
Scriptures in the vulgar languages, without the 
advice and permission of the pastors and spiritual 
guides whom God has appointed to govern his 
Church, Acts xx. 28. Christ himself declaring : 
" He that will not hear the Church, let him be to 
thee as the heathen and the publican," Matt, xviii. 
16. Xor is this due submission to the Catholic 
Church (The pillar and ground of truth, 1 Tim. 
iii. 15), to be understood of the ignorant and un- 
learned only, but also of men accomplished in all 
kinds of learning ; the ignorant fall into errors 
for want of knowledge, and the learned through 
pride and self-sufficiency. Therefore let every 
reader of the Sacred Writings, who pretends to 
be a competent judge of the sense, and of the 
truths revealed in them, reflect on words which 
we find in Isaias, chap. iv. 8, 9. : " My thoughts 
are not as your thoughts, neither are your ways my 
ways, saith the Lord; for as the heavens are 
exalted above the earth, even so are my ways 
exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above 
your thoughts." How then shall any one, by his 
private reason, pretend to judge, to know, to de- 



SACRED SCRIPTURES. 59 

monstrate, the incomprehensible and unsearch- 
able ways of God ? 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Scriptures should be thrown open to all 
the people, in the vulgar tongues ; and each one 
should read them according to his best under- 
standing ; in other words, since God has elected 
no mortal to be an infallible interpreter thereof, 
the liberty of private judgment is accorded to all 
who study Holy Writ with a faithful spirit. — 
(Collected from the general belief of Protestants). 
—Arts. VI, XI, XX, XXIV 

TESTIMONY. 

" Hard to be understood, and wrested by many 
to their own destruction," 2 Peter iii. 16. " As 
also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these 
things : in which are some things hard to be un- 
derstood, which the unlearned and unstable 
wrest, as also the other Scriptures, to their own 
perdition." 

St. John, V. 39, 40 — " Search the Scriptures : 
for you think in them to have life everlasting : 
and the same are they that give testimony of me : 



60 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

— And you will not come to me, that you may 
have life." 

(You) " search the Scriptures." It is not a 
command for all to read the Scriptures, but a re- 
proach to the Pharisees, that, reading the Scrip- 
tures as they did, and thinking to find everlast- 
ing life in them, they would not receive Him to 
whom all those Scriptures gave testimony, and 
through whom alone they could have that true 
life. 

Not of private interpretation, 2 Peter i. 20. — 
" Understanding this first, that no prophecy of 
the Scripture is made by private interpretation." 

This shows plainly that the Scriptures are not 
to be expounded by any one's private judgment 
or private spirit ; because every part of the Holy 
Scriptures was written by men inspired by the 
Holy Ghost, and declared as such by the Church ; 
therefore they are not to be interpreted but by 
the Spirit of God, which he hath left, and prom- 
ised to remain with his Church to guide her in 
all truth to the end of the world. Some may tell 
us, that many of our divines (Catholic) interpret 
the Scriptures. They may do so : but they do it 



SACRED SCRIPTURES. 61 

always with a submission to the judgment of the 
Church, and not otherwise. 

St. Irenaeus. — " In explaining the Scriptures, 
Christians are to attend to the pastors of the 
Church, who by the ordinance of God, have re- 
ceived the inheritance of truth, with the succes- 
sion of their Sees." — Adv. Haer. lib. 4. 

"When, therefore, they (heretics) shall be 
agreed among themselves on what they draw 
from the Scriptures, it will be our time to refute 
them. Meanwhile, thinking wrongfully, and not 
agreeing m the meaning of the same words, they 
convict themselves. But we, having one true 
and only God for our Master, and making His 
words the rule of truth, always speak alike of the 
same things." — Adv. Haer. 1. 4. 

Counsel. — What golden words. The language 
of Irenaeus is the language of the Catholic 
Church of to-day. Within the Church there 
has ever been but one mterpretation of Holy 
Writ. Outside, all is discordance, everyone in- 
terprets as he pleases ; in consequence of which 
there is no harmony of opinion among them. 
This fact alone indicates which is the true 



62 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Church ; for Christ's Word is truth, and truth 
is always the same, always consistent. 

St. Hilary (c. 295-368).— "New creeds have 
come forth every year, and every month : they 
have been changed, have been anathematized, and 
then re-established : and thus, by too much 
inquiry into the faith, there is no faith left. 
Recollect, too, that there is not one of these 
heretics who does not impudently assert that all 
his blasphemies are derived from the Scriptures." 
— Ad. Constant, lib. 2. 

Counsel. — The Church has never forbidden the 
reading of the Scriptures. The most she has 
done to restrict the study or perusal of the In- 
spired Writings is to require that only the edi- 
tion thereof be used which is recognized and ap- 
proved by legitimate authority. The late su- 
preme pontiff, Leo XIII, granted to all the faith- 
for a quarter of an hour each day the Holy 
ful of both sexes who piously and devoutly read 
Gospel, an indulgence of three hundred days for 
each reading thereof. The faithful are counseled 
to read and study the Scriptures, but in a spirit 
similar to that in which progressive lawyers ap- 



SACRED SCRIPTURES. 63 

ply themselves to the study of the State laws and 
constitutions ; the Church, like the Supreme 
Court, is the highest constituted authority to de- 
termine what is meant by those sections which 
come into controversy. It would be an extreme- 
ly ridiculous act to restrain the members of the 
legal profession from reading the State constitu- 
tions ; yet a queer system of jurisprudence might 
be evolved if each attorney were privileged to in- 
terpret the laws to suit the exigencies of his 
clients. Probably one advantage would result 
from making the private judgment of the indi- 
vidual lawyer the sole exponent of what shall be 
the construction of the law, — the cause being re- 
moved, there would be no further ground for his 
alleged dishonesty. But contemplate, if you can, 
the spectacle of as many prevailing systems of 
jurisprudence based upon the same constitution 
as there are religious creeds founded upon the 
Bible ! The truth is, it seems, that Protestants 
want a perfect system of jurisprudence, which 
affects their temporal property, and they are in- 
dififerent as to the soundness of their religion, 
which affects their immortal souls. The incon- 



64 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

gruity exhibited by the comparison should suf- 
fice to show that the Catholic system is the only 
one upon which we may hope to attain Christian 
unity. 

But our adversaries may object that any and 
all versions of the Bible are good for the people 
at large to read. That the Protestant and Catho- 
lic versions are so much alike that there can be 
said to be but little difference between them, and 
that for that reason all are equally profitable for 
the people. But to that we might answer, the 
changes that have been made by the authors of 
the Protestant Bible are at times very important, 
so important indeed as to change the very nature 
of important texts, and so there is a radical dif- 
ference between the Bible that they give to their 
people to read, and the Bible of the Catholics 
which contains the unaltered teachings of the 
Old Testament, and the unchanged and ungarbled 
teachings of our Lord Jesus Christ. It is only 
in the Catholic Church, i.e. to the Apostles and 
their successors, the bishops, that our Lord has 
promised the gift of the Holy Spirit, and that the 
gates of hell shall not prevail against it. HencQ 



SACRED SCRIPTURES, 65 

the Holy Scripture, out of which the Catholic 
Church draws her teaching, cannot possibly be 
altered or corrupted. Heretics have, on the other 
hand, sometimes changed the meanings of par- 
ticular passages in their own favor, or have 
omitted whole portions if they did not please 
them. Thus Luther rejected the Epistle of St. 
James because the Apostle says that faith with- 
out works is dead. The difficulty of under- 
standing Holy Scripture is a further reason for 
the Church's restrictions. How few there are 
who can honestly say that they thoroughly 
understand the epistles that are read at Mass — 
and these are chosen for their simple and prac- 
tical character. St. Peter himself says (2 Pet. iii. 
16) that in the Epistles of St. Paul there are 
some things hard to be understood, and that 
the unstable would pervert these to their own 
destruction. St. Augustine says: "There are 
more things in the Bible which I cannot under- 
stand than those I can understand." .The pro- 
phetical books are especially obscure. Hence the 
necessity of an authentic exposition of the Bible. 
Heretics often give half a dozen different mean- 



66 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

ings to the same passage. The Catholic Church 
is the authority that God has appointed to ex- 
plain Holy Scripture : for to her the Holy Spirit 
has been given. The child brings the nut that 
has been given to it to its mother to be cracked : 
so the Catholic comes to the Church for the ex- 
planation of the Bible. This is why only Bibles 
with explanatory notes are allowed to Catholics. 
But some of our adversaries will go still further 
and say that the reading of the Bible is not per- 
mitted to the Catholic in his private home, and 
that he must take his teachings on that score from 
the priests and others whom he may consider as 
competent to teach. This it might be said, that 
the Catholic is not allowed to give his own mean- 
ing to the words of the sacred text, and this ap- 
plies to the learned as well as to the ignorant, 
for they believe that the doctrinal teaching is 
vested in the Church and not in the individual. 
But to say that the ordinary Catholic is not 
allowed to read the Bible for instruction and for 
the purpose of pious reading is far beside the facts. 
In fact the reading of the Bible is not only per- 
mitted, but is also encouraged for all who are fit 
to be called Catholics, 



CHAPTER V. 

TRADITION (apostolical). 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Holy Scriptures and Apostolical and Ecclesi- 
astical Tradition are the sources of Christian 
truth, both of which, and the doctrines supported 
thereby, are preserved and taught free of error 
by the Church. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary 
to salvation: so that whatsoever is not read 
therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not re- 
quired to be believed as an article of faith. — 
Art. VI. 

TESTIMONY. 

1 Corinthians xi. 2 — " Now I praise you, breth- 
ren, that in all things you are mindful of me ; 
and keep my ordinances, as I delivered them to 

you." 

67 



68 .THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

2 Thess. ii. 14 — "Therefore, brethren, stand 
firm : and hold the traditions which you have 
learned, whether by word or our epistle." 

" Traditions." See here that the unwritten 
traditions of the Apostles are no less to be re- 
ceived than their epistles. 

2 Thess. iii. 6 — " And we charge you, brethren, 
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you 
withdraw yourselves from every brother walking 
disorderly, and not according to the tradition 
which they have received of us." 

2 Tim. i. 13 — " Hold the form of sound words, 
which thou hast heard from me in faith, and in 
the love which is in Christ Jesus : " ii. 2 — " And 
the things, which thou hast heard from me, be- 
fore many witnesses, the same commend to faith- 
ful men, who shall be fit to teach others also : " 
iii. 14 — " But continue thou in the things which 
thou hast learned, and which have been commit- 
ted to thee ; knowing of whom thou hast learned." 

Eusebius. — " Which truths, though they be 
consigned to the Sacred Writings, are still, in a 
fuller manner, confirmed by the traditions of 
the Catholic Church, which Church is diffused 



TRADITION (APOSTOLICAL). 69 

over all the earth. This unwritten tradition 
confirms and seals the testimonies of the Holy 
Scriptures." — Dem. Evang. lib. 1. 

St. Basil. — " Separate not the Holy Spirit from 
the Father and the Son: let tradition deter 
you." — Homil. 24, adv. Sabell. "Among the 
dogmas of the Church there are some contained 
in the Scriptures, and some come from tradition ; 
but both have an equal efficacy in the promotion 
of piety." — De Spirit. Sanct. c. 27. " In my opin- 
ion, it is apostolical to adhere to unwritten tra- 
ditions." — Ibid. c. 29. " It is the common aim 
of all the enemies of sound doctrine to shake the 
solidity of our faith in Christ by annulling apos- 
tolical TRADITION they dismiss the unwrit- 
ten testimony of the Fathers as a thing of no 
value."— Ibid. c. 10. 

Epiphanius. — " We must look also to tradi- 
tion ; for all things cannot be learned from the 
Scriptures." — Contra Ilaereses, tom. 1, lib. 2. 

Chrysostom. — " Hence it is manifest that they 
(the Apostles, 2 Thess. ii. 14) did not deliver all 
things by means of Epistles, but that they made 
many communications without writing ; and that 



70 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

both are equally entitled to credence. It is a 
TRADITION, ask no further." — Horn. 4, in 2 Thess. 
St. Irenaeus. — Referring to his own master, 
Poly carp, who had been the disciple of St. John 
the Evangelist, says, "Poly carp always taught 
these things, w^hich he had learned from the 
Apostles, which he delivered to the Church, and 
which alone are true." Addressing a heretic, 
named Florinus, who had adopted the errors of 
the Valentinians, he says, " Those opinions the 
Presbyters before us, who also conversed with 
the Apostles, have not delivered to you. For I 
saw you, when I was very young, in Lower Asia 
with Polycarp. ... I better remember the af- 
fairs of that time than those which have lately 
happened; the things which we learn in our 
childhood growing up with the soul and uniting 
themselves to it. Insomuch that I can tell you 
the place in which the blessed Polycarp sat and 
taught, and his going out and coming in ; and the 
manner of his life and person ; and the discourses 
he made to the people, and how he related his con- 
versation with St. John, and others who had 
seen the Lord ; and how he related their sayings, 



TRADITION (APOSTOLICAL) 71 

and what he had heard from them concerning the 
Lord ; both concerning his miracles and his doc- 
trines, as he had received them from the eye-wit- 
nesses of the Word of Life : all which Poly carp 
related agreeably to the Scriptures. These things 
I then, through the mercy of God toward me, 
diligently heard and attended to, recording them 
not on paper, but upon my heart ; and, through 
the grace of God, I continually renew my remem- 
brance of them." 

St. Irenaeus. — " The tongues of nations vary, 
but the virtue of tradition is one and the same 
everywhere ; nor do the churches in Germany 
believe or teach differently from those in Spain, 
Gaul, the East, Egypt, or Lybia." " Supposing 
the Apostles had not left us the Scriptures, ought 
we not still to have followed the ordinance of 
TRADITION, which they consigned to those to 
whom they committed the Churches ? It is this 
ordinance of tradition which many nations of 
barbarians, believing in Christ, follow without 
the use of letters or ink." — Adv. Haer. lib. 3, c. 4. 

TertuUian. — "To know what the Apostles 
taught, that is, what Christ revealed to them, re- 



72 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

course must be had to the Churches which they 
founded, and which they instructed by word of 
mouth and by their Epistles." — De Praescrip. c. 
21. " Of these (certain practices in the adminis- 
tration of Baptism) and other usages, if you ask 
for the written authority of the Scriptures, none 
will be found. They spring from tradition, 
which practice has confirmed and obedience rati- 
fied." — lb. 3, 4. " To the Scriptures, therefore, 
an appeal must not be had. . . . the question is, 
to whom was that doctrine committed by which 
we are made Christians ? for wliere this doctrine 
and this faith shall be found, there will be the 
truth of the Scriptures and their expositions, and 
of all Christian tradition." — lb. 19. 

Origen. — " That alone is truth which in noth- 
ing differs from ecclesiastical and apostolical tra- 
dition." — Praef. lib. 1. de Princip. "As often 
as the heretics produce the Canonical Scriptures 
in which every Christian agrees and believes, 
they seem to say, Lo ! with us is the word of 
truth. But to them (the heretics) we cannot give 
credit, nor depart from the first and ecclesiasti- 
cal tradition. We can believe only as the sue- 



TRADITION (APOSTOLICAL). ^3 

ceeding Churches of God have delivered." — Tract. 
29 in Mat. 

Cyprian. — " It is easy to minds that are relig- 
ious and simple to lay aside error, and to discover 
truth : for if we turn to the source of Divine tra- 
dition, error ceases." — Ep. 63. 

On this passage St. Augustin remarks : — " The 
advice which St. Cyprian gives to recur to the 
TRADITION of the Apostlcs, and thence to bring 
down the series to our own times, is excellent, 
and manifestly to be followed." — De Bapt. contra 
Donatist, 1. 5, c. 26. 

Counsel. — " How can the Scriptures prove their 
own inspiration ? It is on their inspiration that 
all their doctrinal authority depends. You must 
show that they are inspired before you can de- 
duce a single point of doctrine from their testi- 
mony. If, in attempting to demonstrate the in- 
spiration of any book, you pre-suppose its inspir- 
ation, you fall into a petitio principii ; you take 
for granted what you have undertaken to prove. 
If you do not pre-suppose its inspiration, then its 
testimony on that point is of no more authority 
than the testimony of any profane or ecclesiasti- 



74 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

cal writer. . . . Perhaps it may be said that the 
writers appear, from the tradition of testimony, 
to have been the Apostles of Christ ; that they 
were under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; 
that they could not teach a false doctrine ; and 
that, of course, their writings must be inspired. 
But whence is all this information obtained ? If 
from the tradition of testimony, it is then false 
that the inspiration of the Scripture can be proved 
from Scripture only : if from the Scripture, then 
you must prove its inspiration before you can 
exact the belief of the reader to such assertions. 
Hence, I conclude, that to determine the canon 
or the inspiration of the Scripture from the 
Scripture alone, is impracticable : the knowledge 
of both must be derived from tradition." — Dr. 
Lingard. 

And moreover, can not and ought not the same 
things be allowed for the books of the New Testa- 
ment as for the Old Testament books. And was 
not tradition one of the ways that the books of 
the Old Testament were handed down to us ? 
How could the books of the ancient Jew have 
been delivered from generation to generation, 



TRADITION (APOSTOLICAL). 75 

from father to son, if not by oral tradition ? The 
printing press was not known in these times and 
the ordinary method of printing a book (if print- 
ing it might be called) was so expensive as to pre- 
clude the possibility of their coming into the hands 
of any but the very wealthiest of the people. And 
if they had that difficulty in handing down the 
word of God to their posterity, did not the Apostles 
and their immediate successors have difficulties 
almost as great ? What opportunity did the early 
Christians have for the dissemination of the teach- 
ing of God by means of the printed word or book ? 
Were they not driven from place to place with a 
price often set upon their heads ? And if that 
were so, it is not at all likely that they had the 
opportunity to disseminate literature of any kind. 
They had to instruct the catechumens, and how 
was that to be done, if not by oral tradition ? 
They had no other means of teaching the young 
or those who were about to embrace the faith of 
Christ, but the oral tradition that they had re- 
ceived from the Apostles and those they sent 
to mstruct them. What is more reasonable 
than to suppose that, in the early ages of the 



76 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Church as well as in the early ages of the Jewish 
race, tradition, or oral teaching was common 
amongst the people, and that through that means 
as well as by any other they first learned that 
there was such a thing as the Bible and that the 
teachings contained therein were directly from 
God and therefore inspired. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OEIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Baptism is a Sacrament which wipes out all 
sin, and remits the punishment due to it. It 
makes us children of God and of his Church. 
Not only is original sin, with which we all come 
into the world infected, remitted by it, but all 
actual sins committed before its worthy recep- 
tion. Baptism forgives not only the sin itself, 
but also for time and eternity remits all punish- 
ment due to the justice of God, for sins com- 
mitted before it is received. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Baptism does not remit punishment due either 
to original or actual sins. — Arts. XV, XXVII. 
Otherwise, the Catholic definition is allowed 

mainly. 

77 



78 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

TESTIMONY. 

Original sin, Romans v. 12 — " Wherefore as by 
one man, Adam, sin entered into this world, and 
by sin death : and so death passed upon all men, 
in whom all have sinned." 1 Cor. xv. 21, — " For 
by a man came death, and by a man the resurrec- 
tion of the dead. — And as in Adam all die, so also 
in Christ all shall be made alive." Ephesians 
ii. 3 — " Among whom also we all conversed in 
time past, in the desires of our flesh, fulfilling the 
will of the flesh and of our thoughts, and were by 
nature the children of wrath, even as the rest : " 

Baptism ordained by Christ, St. Matthew 
xxviii. 19 — " Go ye, therefore, and teach all 
nations; baptizing them in the name of the 
Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 

Necessary to salvation, St. John iii. 5 — " Jesus 
answered : Amen, amen I say to thee, unless a 
man be born again of water and of the Holy 
Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God." 

Remits sin. Acts ii. 38 — " Do penance, and be 
baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the re- 
mission of your sins." 

Rom. vi. 4, 7 — " We are buried together with 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 79 

Him (Christ) by baptism unto death 

For he that is dead is justified from sin." 

Administered by the Apostles in water. Acts 
viii. 36, 38—" And as they went on the w^ay, they 
came to a certain water : and the eunuch saith : 
See, here is water ; what hindereth me from being 
baptized ? — And he commanded the chariot to 
stand still : and they both went down into the 
water, Philip and the eunuch ; and he baptized 
him." 

Acts X. 47, 48 — " Then Peter answered : Can 
any man forbid water, that these should not be 
baptized, who have received the Holy Ghost as 
well as we ? — And he commanded them to be 
baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Then they entreated him to stay with them some 
days." 

Ephesians v. 26 — " That he might sanctify it, 
cleansing it by the laver of water in the word of 
life.'' 

Hebrews x. 22 — " Let us draw near with a 
true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts 
sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bod- 
ies washed with clean ^ater," 



80 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

1 Peter iii. 20, 21, 22— "Who in time past 
had been incredulous, when they waited for the 
patience of God in the days of Noe, when the 
ark was a building : in which a few, that is, eight 
souls, were saved by water. — Whereunto baptism 
being of the like form, now saveth you also ; not 
the putting away of the filth of the flesh, but the 
examination of a good conscience towards God 
by the resurrection of Jesus Christ, — Who is on 
the right hand of God, swallowing up death, 
that we might become heirs of life everlasting ; 
he being gone into heaven, the angels, and 
powers, and virtues, being made subject to him." 

" Whereunto baptism, etc." Baptism is said to 
be of the like form with the water by which JSToe 
was saved ; because the one was a figure of the 
other. 

" Not the putting away, etc." As much as to 
say, that baptism has not its efficacy, in order to 
salvation, from its washing away any bodily filth 
or dirt ; but from its purging the conscience from 
sin, when accompanied with suitable dispositions 
in the party, to answer the interrogations made 
at that time, with relation to faith, the renouncing 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 81 

of Satan with all his works, and the obedience to 
God's commandments. 

For the baptism of infants, St. Luke xviii. 16 — 
" But Jesus, calling them together, said : Suffer 
little children to come to me, and forbid them 
not : for of such is the kingdom of God." 

St. Augustin declares that the baptism of 
infants rests on the authority of apostolic and 
Divine tradition. — Tom. 3, De Genes, ad literam, 
lib. 10, c. 28. 

St. Augustin. — " Baptism wholly washeth 
away all sins of thought, word, and deed, whether 
original or actual ; whether through ignorance, 
or whether willingly committed : but it doth not 
take away the infirmity which the Christian re- 
sisteth when he fights the good fight," etc. — Tom. 
7, lib. 3, c. 3. 

Counsel. — It is aside from the purpose of this 
little volume to give anything like a satisfactory 
definition or explanation of the various rites, 
ceremonies, and sacraments of the Catholic 
Church. The work is meant as an answer to 
those controvertists who assume from tradition 
and the Scriptures in drawing their condemna- 



82 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

tions of Catholicism. Protestantism, as the term 
suggests, is a protest against the Christian religion 
which existed "for eight hundred years and 
more " previous to the Reformation. Catholicism 
certainly has antiquity on its side ; and in the 
absence of positive proof that there had been a 
decided departure from the old faith, at the time 
of the Reformation, Protestantism will not satisfy 
the soul which longs for certainty of the way, 
the light, and the truth. Far be it from us, 
however, to charge our dissenting brethren with 
a lack of sincerity. They may be honestly mis- 
taken ; and the sanctity of a clear conscience, due to 
a truly virtuous life, has kept many a one from 
seeking a fuller measure of truth. Nevertheless, a 
blameless social life is no excuse for not learning 
the perfect life, that is, the spiritual life. But 
Protestants still hold to the doctrine of our Lord's 
Divinity, and to that extent we are with them, 
all brothers in Christ. The curse of bigotry has 
heretofore greatly retarded the reunion of the 
Christian flock, and out of the dissensions of the 
past has grown a strong host of infidelity. We 
now confront a common enemy, and if we wish 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 83 

to harmonize our forces against the spread of 
Unbelief ^Q should mutually discuss the subject 
of religion in a friendly spirit; confessing the 
same Christ, we should not hate each other be- 
cause of differences in creed ; and thus we may 
sooner bring about Christian unity, a unity 
founded ux)on a general acceptance of the doctrines 
which the Son of God bade the pastors of His 
Church to teach to all nations. 

So much is said in the Scriptures about the 
sacrament of Baptism that the Reformers were 
loath to deny its efficacy. No Catholic doctrine, 
however, was allowed to go undisputed. Baptism, 
they protested, does not remit punishment due 
either to original or actual sins, and it should 
not be administered to infants. 

" Baptism," says Rev. W. Wilmers, the Ger- 
man writer, in his Handbook of the Christian 
Religion, " cancels both original and actual sin. 
For Holy Scripture attributes to baptism as its 
effect remission of sin without any limitation — to 
Jews, who had already been cleansed from orig- 
inal sin, as well as to heathens who still bore 
its guilt. 'We are buried together with Him 



84 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

(Christ) by baptism unto death. . . . For he 
that is dead \s justifiedivom. sin' (Rom. vi. 4, 7). 
' Do penance, and be baptized^ every one of you, in 
the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of 
your sins' (Acts ii. 38). The Church confesses 
Avithout distinction or limitation (Symt. Con- 
stant.) ' one baptism for the remission of sins.' 
The Council of Florence expressly declares: 
* That the effect of this sacrament is the remission 
of all sin, original as well as actual.' As to 
children being exempt, Christ teaches without 
any restriction that ' unless a man be born again 
of water and of the Holy Ghost he cannot enter 
into the kingdom of God.' The law is evidently 
universal. Christ speaks not, as in the command- 
ment to eat His flesh and drink His blood, of 
adults only. (John vi.) He simply asserts that 
baptism is necessary for all, consequently, for 
infants, in order to obtain salvation (Mark x. 14). 
The Church has always held that baptism is nec- 
essary for the salvation of all, even infants. The 
Synod of Mileve (A. D. 418) condemned the as- 
sertion of the Pelagians that ' infants are not to 
be baptized.' " 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 85 

That original sin, and all other sins might be 
washed out by the cleansing waters of baptism 
was foretold by the Prophet Ezekiel, through 
whom God said : " I will pour upon you clean 
water, and you shall be cleansed from all your 
filthiness." The Apostle also, writing to the 
Corinthians, after having enumerated a long 
catalogue of crimes, adds : " such you were, but 
you are washed, but you are sanctified." That 
such was at all times, the doctrine of the Catholic 
Church, is not matter of doubtful inquiry. " By 
the generation of the flesh," says St. Augustine, 
in his book on the baptism of infants, " we con- 
tract original sin only ; by the regeneration of 
the Spirit we obtain forgiveness not only of 
original, but also of actual guilt." St. Jerome, 
also writing to Oceanus says : " All sins are for- 
given in baptism." To obviate the possibility of 
doubt upon the subject, the Council of Trent, to 
the definitions of former Councils, has added its 
own distinct declaration, by pronouncing ana- 
thema against those who should presume to 
think otiierwise, or should dare to assert " that 
although sin is forgiven in baptism it is not 



86 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

entirely removed, or totally eradicated ; but is 
cut away in such a manner, as to leave its roots 
still firmly fixed in the soul." To use the words 
of the same holy Council : " God hates nothing 
in those who are regenerated, for in those who 
are truly buried with Christ, by baptism, unto 
death, "who walk not according to the flesh," 
" There is no condemnation ; putting off the old 
man, and putting on the new, which is created 
according to God, they become innocent, spot- 
less, innoxious, and beloved of God. 

Speaking on this all-important subject, the 
Council of Trent says : " That the law of bap- 
tism, as established by our Lord, extends to all, 
in so much, that unless they are regenerated 
through the grace of baptism, be their parents 
Christians or infidels, they are born to eternal 
misery and everlasting destruction ; for < Unless 
a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, 
he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.' " 

That this law extends, not only to adults, but 
also to infants, and that the Church has received 
this its interpretation from the Apostolic tra- 
dition, is confirmed by the authority and 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 87 

strengthened by the concurrent testimony of the 
Fathers. Besides, it is not to be supposed, that 
Christ our Lord, would have withheld the Sac- 
rament of baptism, and the grace which it im- 
parts from children, of whom he said : " Suffer 
the little children, and stay them not from com- 
ing to me, for the kingdom of heaven is for such " 
— from children whom he embraced — upon 
whom he imposed hands — whom he blessed. 
Moreover, when we read that an entire family 
was baptized by St. Paul, children, who are 
included in their number, must, it is obvious, 
have also been cleansed in the purifying waters 
of baptism. Circumcision, too, which was a 
figure of baptism, affords a strong argument in 
favor of this primitive practice. That children 
were circumcised on the eighth day is universally 
known. If, then, circumcision, " made by hand 
in despoiling the body of the flesh," was profit- 
able to children, shall not baptism, which is the 
circumcision of Christ, not " made by hand " 
be also profitable to them ? Fnally, to use the 
words of the Apostle, " if by one man's offence, 
death reigned through one ; much more they 



88 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

who receive abundance of grace, and of the gift, 
and of justice, shall reign in life through one, 
Jesus Christ." If, then, through the transgres- 
sion of Adam, children inherit the stain of 
primeval guilt, is there not still stronger reason 
to conclude, that the efficacious merits of Christ 
the Lord must impart to them that justice and 
those graces, which will give them a title to 
reign in eternal life? This happy consum- 
mation baptism alone can accomplish. 

That when baptized they receive the mysteri- 
ous gift of faith cannot be a matter of doubt : 
not that they believe by the formal assent of 
the mind, but because their incapacity Is sup- 
plied by the faith of their parents, if the parents 
profess the true faith, if not, (to use the words 
of St. Augustine) "by that of the universal 
society of the saints : " for they are said with 
propriety to be presented for baptism by all 
those, to whom their initiation in that sacred 
rite was a source of joy, and by whose charity 
they are united to the communion of the Holy 
Ghost. 

Admonishing the Christian parents of the 



ORIGINAL SIN AND BAPTISM. 89 

necessity for ha^dng their children baptized at 
the earliest moment, fearing no doubt lest even 
one of Christ's little ones should be deprived of 
that sacrament which in the event of their early 
death would insure for them eternal life, the 
same holy Council says : " The faithful are 
earnestly to be exhorted, to take care that their 
children be brought to the church, as soon as it 
can be done with safety, to receive solemn bap- 
tism. Infants, unless baptized, cannot enter 
heaven, and hence we may well conceive how 
deep the enormity of their guilt, who, through 
negligence, suffer them to remain without the 
grace of the sacrament, longer than necessity 
may require ; particularly at an age so tender 
as to be exposed to numberless dangers of death. 
How can any one after reading the various 
testimonies of the Scriptures, the teachings of 
the Fathers, the words of the Councils, and the 
general practice of Christ's Church, doubt that 
Baptism not only can, but does remit the stain 
of the guilt of original sin, as well as that of 
actual sin, if the person baptized be guilty of 
any ? If we deny this do we not say, in effect 



90 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

at any rate, that Christ did not know what he 
was saying when he said : " That unless a man 
be born again of water and the Holy Ghost he 
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God? To 
deny that it was the practice of the Church, in 
even the earliest ages, is to deny the truth of 
the very Scriptures on which the Protestants 
build their rather unstable religion, for do not 
the Scriptures tell us of the baptism of many, 
even of Christ himself, not of course, that it re- 
mitted any sin in His particular case. Those 
who are acquainted with the history of the early 
Church will recall to mind that in the first ages 
of Christianity, religious instruction preceded the 
baptism of adults, and that the candidates were 
called catechumens. We know how carefully 
the secrets of the Church were guarded, and how 
thoroughly the convert was instructed in the 
mysteries of religion, and that they were taught 
that in their regard, perfect conversion consisted 
in regeneration, and that they were not to defer 
it longer than necessary. 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONFIRMATION. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Confirmation is a Sacrament through which 
we receive the Holy Ghost, to make us strong 
and perfect Christians and soldiers of Jesus 
Christ. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Confirmation is not to be counted a Sacra- 
ment of the Gospel, it having grown partly out 
of a corrupt following of the Apostles, and having 
no visible sign or ceremony ordained of God. 
—Art. XXV. 

TESTIMONY. 

Administered by the Apostles, Acts viii. 15, 16, 

17 — " Who, when they were come, prayed for them 

that they might receive the Holy Ghost : — For He 

was not yet come upon any one of them ; but 

they were only baptized in the name of the Lord 

91 



92 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Jesus Christ. — Then they laid their hands upon 
them ; and they received the Holy Ghost." 

" They laid their hands upon them," etc. — The 
Apostles administered the Sacrament of Confirma- 
tion, by imposition of hands, and prayer : and the 
faithful thereby received the Holy Ghost. Xot 
but that they had received the grace of the Hol)'^ 
Ghost at their baptism ; yet not that plenitude of 
grace and those spiritual gifts which they after- 
wards received from bishops, in the sacrament of 
confirmation, which strengthened them to profess 
their faith publicly. 

Acts xix. 6 — "And when Paul had imposed 
his hands on them, the Holy Ghost came upon 
them, and they spoke tongues, and prox3hesied." 

2 Cor. i. 21, 22—" Xow he that confirmeth us 
with you in Christ, and he that anointed us, is 
God ; — Who also hath sealed us, and given the 
pledge of the Spirit in our hearts." 

Hebrews vi. 2 — "Of the doctrine of baptism, 
and of imposition of hands and the resurrection 
of the dead, and of eternal judgment." 

Confirmation has all the character of a sac- 
rament, and as such it is recognized by the uni- 



CONFIRMATION. 93 

form, universal, and constant tradition of the 
Church. — Tertullian, De Bapt., ch. 7 ; Eusebius, 
Ecclesiastical History, Book VI., ch. 43; St. 
Cyprian, Ep. 7. 

Counsel. — " Confirmation is a Sacrament of the 
New Law, instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ ; 
it communicates the Holy Ghost to those already 
baptized, to strengthen them in their faith and 
make them perfect Christians. The outward 
sign of this Sacrament is the imposition of the 
bishop's hands, the anointing with chrism, and 
the form of prayer used by him. The inward 
grace is the giving of the Holy Ghost. In the 
primitive times this was manifested by miracu- 
lous gifts, but, as St. Augustin says : ' Temporal 
and sensible miracles do not now attest that the 
Holy Ghost is given by the imposition of hands, 
as He was formerly given to confirm incipient faith 
and extend the rising Church. For who now ex- 
pects that those on whom hands are imposed, that 
they may receive the Holy Ghost, should suddenly 
begin to speak with tongues ? But divine charity 
is understood to be invisibly and secretly inspired 
mto their hearts by the bond of peace ; so that 



94 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

they can say: 'The charity of God is poured 
out into our hearts by the Holy Ghost, who is 
given us.' Lib. 3, De Baptism, contra Donat., ch. 
16. Confirmation was rejected in the sixteenth 
century, because the Gospels do not record the 
particular occasions wherein Christ commissioned 
his Apostles to communicate the Holy Ghost by 
the imposition of hands. This only proves the 
insufficiency of the Scriptures without tradition, 
for they nowhere detail the instructions given by 
our Lord to his Apostles after his resurrection 
though we know he remained forty days with 
them, instructing them in regard to the kingdom 
of God. How could such miraculous results 
follow its administration (Acts xix. 6) if it were 
not truly a divine sacrament ? " 

" St Fabian, the Roman pontiff and martyr, 
states, that after Christ our Lord had supped, 
and washed the feet of his disciples, he taught 
them how to make the chrism. (Tom. 1. Con- 
ciliorum, epist. 2.) Wherefore it is probable, 
that it was at that time also Christ instituted 
the sacrament of confirmation." 

That confirmation has all the conditions of a 



CONFIRMATION. 95 

true sacrament has been at all times, the doctrine 
of the Catholic Church, as Pope Melchiades, and 
many other very holy and ancient pontiffs ex- 
pressly declare. The truth of this doctrine St. 
Clement could not have confirmed in stronger 
terms than when he says : " All should hasten, 
without delay to be born again to God, and then 
to be sealed by the bishop, that is, to receive the 
seven- fold gift of the Holy Ghost: for, as we 
have learned from St, Peter, and as the other 
Apostles taught in obedience to the command of 
our Lord, he who contumeliously and not from 
necessity, but voluntarily neglects to receive this 
Sacrament, cannot possibly become a perfect 
Christian." This same doctrine has been con- 
firmed, as may be seen in their decrees, by the 
Urbans, the Fabians, the Eusebius's, pontiffs 
who, animated with the same spirit, shed their 
blood for the name of Christ. It is also forti- 
fied by the unanimous testimony of the Fathers, 
amongst whom Denis the Areopagite, bishop of 
Athens, teaching how to consecrate and make 
use of the holy ointment, says : " The priest 
clothes the person baptized with a garment 



96 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

emblematic of his purity, in order to conduct 
him to the bishop, and the bishop signing him 
with the holy and divine ointment, makes him 
partaker of the most holy communion." Of such 
importance does Eusebius of Caesarea deem this 
Sacrament, that he hesitates not to say, that the 
heretic Novatus could not receive the Holy 
Ghost, because, having received baptism, he 
was not, when visited by a severe illness, sealed 
with the sign of chrism. On this subject we 
might adduce testimonies the most conclusive 
from St. Ambrose in his book on the Initiated, and 
St. Augustine in his works against the epistles 
of the Donatist Petilian : so convinced were 
they, that no doubt could exist as to the reality 
of this Sacrament, that they not only taught the 
doctrine, but confirmed its truth by many pas- 
sages of Scripture, the one applying to it these 
words of the Apostle : " Grieve not the Holy 
Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto the 
day of redemption," the other, these words of 
the Psalmist, "like the precious ointment on 
the head, that ran down upon the beard of 
Aaron," and also these words of the sam@ 



CONFIRMATION. 97 

Apostle ; " the charity of God is poured forth in 
our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is given to us." 

Confirmation, although said by Melchiades to 
have a most intimate connection with baptism, 
is yet an entirely different Sacrament : the 
diversity of the grace which each Sacrament 
confers, and the diversity of the external sign 
employed to signify that grace, obviously con- 
stitute them different Sacraments. As by the 
grace of baptism we are begotten to newness of 
life, and by that of Confirmation grow to full 
maturity, "having put away the things of a 
child," we can hence sufficiently comprehend 
that the same difference which exists in the 
natural order between birth and growth, exists 
also in the supernatural, between baptism which 
regenerates, and confirmation which imparts full 
growth and perfect spiritual strength. 

Again, if the new difficulties which the soul 
has to encounter, demand the aid of a new and 
distinct Sacrament, it is obvious that as we have 
occasion for the grace of baptism to stamp upon 
the soul the impress of the true faith, so it is of 
the utmost advantage that a new grace fortify 



98 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

US with such intrepidity of soul, that no clanger, 
no dread of pains, tortures, death, have power to 
deter us from the profession of the true faith. 
Hence, Pope Melchiades marks the difference 
between them with minute accuracy in these 
terms : " In baptism," says he, " the Christian is 
enlisted into the service, in confirmation he is 
equipped for battle : at the baptismal font the 
Holy Ghost imparts the plenitude of innocence, 
in confirmation the perfection of grace ; in bap- 
tism we are regenerated to life, after baptism 
we are fortified for the combat : in baptism we 
are cleansed, in confirmation we are strength- 
ened: regeneration saves by its own efficacy 
those who receive baptism in peace, confirmation 
arms and prepares for the conflict." These are 
truths not only recorded by other Councils, but 
specially defined by the Council of Trent, and we 
are therefore no longer at liberty not only to 
dissent from, but even to entertain the least 
doubt regarding them. (Council of Trent.) 

How can any one read the words of the Coun- 
cil of Trent, and the proofs deduced therein, 
not only from the Fathers of the early Church, 



CONFIRMATION. 99 

but also from the very Scriptures themselves, 
and still entertain even the slightest doubt about 
the existence of the Sacrament of confirmation ? 
We see here a comparison, and a most beautiful 
one at that, between the Sacraments of baptism 
and confirmation. One regenerates, the other 
strengthens. One makes us children, the other 
soldiers of Jesus Christ. Experience would 
teach us aside from the proofs of Scripture that 
there is, there must be some sacrament to make 
us strong enough to fight the devil when he as- 
sails us with the most violent temptation, — temp- 
tations against faith as well as the ordinary 
temptations with which he tries to wrest the 
souls for which Christ suffered. 

As Catholics we believe that the same Holy 
Spirit who descended on the Apostles comes 
down upon us when we receive confirmation, and 
that he bestows on each and every one of us the 
same seven-fold gifts that he bestowed on them, 
for although we do not need them as much as 
they did we still need the assistance of the Divine 
Spirit to enable us to withstand the assaults of 
the devil, the world, and the flesh. The person 



LoFC. 



100 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

who neglects to receive this Sacrament may be 
likened to the traveler who goes unaccompanied 
on a long and perilous journey. If he be over- 
taken by robbers and stripped of all that he pos- 
sesses: if his very life be endangered he will 
have none but himself to blame. So, too, is it 
with him who neglects to receive confirmation if 
opportunity offers. If he is overcome by the 
devil, he has none but himself to blame, for he 
has neglected to avail himself of the very means 
that Christ instituted to avert such dangers, for 
it is the will of Christ that all be filled with the 
Spirit (John vii. 37). 



CHAPTER VIII. 

THE EUCHARIST. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which 
contains the body and blood, soul and divinity, 
of our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearances 
of bread and wine. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten 
in the Supper, only after a heavenly and spir- 
itual manner. And the means, whereby the body 
of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper, is 
Faith. Transubstantiation is repugnant to the 
plain words of Scripture. — Art. XXVIII. 

TESTIMONY. 

The Real Presence of the body and blood of 

Christ, and Transubstantiation proved from St. 

Matthew xxvi. 26, 27, 28 — " And whilst they were 

101 



102 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

at supper, Jesus took bread, and blessed, and 
broke, and gave to his disciples ; and said : Take 
ye and eat : This is my body. — And taking the 
chalice, he gave thanks ; and gave to them, saying : 
Drink ye all of this. — For this is my blood of the 
new testament, which shall be shed for many for 
the remission of sins." 

"This is my body." He does not say, this is 
the figure of my body, but this is my hody^ (2. 
Council of Nice, Act. VI.) Neither does he say, 
in this, or with this is my body ; but absolutely, 
this is my hody^ which xDlainly implies transub- 
stantiation. 

" Drink ye all of this." This was spoken to 
the twelve Apostles ; who were the All then pres- 
ent ; and they all drank of it, says St. Mark xiv. 
23. But it in no way follows from these words 
spoken to the Apostles, that all the faithful are 
commanded to consecrate, offer and administer 
this sacrament ; because Christ upon this same 
occasion, and at the same time, bade the Apostles 
do so; in these words, St. Luke xxii. 19 — "Do 
this in commemoration of me." 

St. Mark xiv, 22, 23, 24—" And whilst they 



THE EUCHARIST. 10 



Q 



were eating, Jesus took bread, and blessing broke, 
and gave to them, and said : Take ye. This is my 
body. — And having taken the chalice, giving 
thanks, he gave it to them : and they all drank of 
it. — And he said to them : This is my blood of 
the new testament, which shall be shed for 
many." 

St. Luke xxii. 19, 20 — "And taking bread, he 
gave thanks, and brake, and gave to them, saying : 
This is my body which is given for you : Do this 
for a commemoration of me. — In like manner the 
chalice also, after he had supped, saying : This 
is the chalice, the new testament in my blood, 
which shall be shed for you." 

" Do this " etc. This sacrifice and sacrament is 
to be continued in the Church, until he cometh. 
He addresses the Apostles in the same form as 
when delivering the Power of the Keys, which 
again proves that the power of forgiving sins is 
to remain in the Church till the end of the 
world. 

St. John vi. 51, 52, 53, 54, 58—" I am the living 
bread, which came down from heaven. — If any 
man eat of this bread, he shall live forever : and 



104 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the bread which I will give, is my flesh for the 
life of the world." The Jews, therefore, strove 
among themselves, saying : How can this man 
give us his flesh to eat? — Then Jesus said to them 
(the Jews) : " Amen, amen I say unto you : 
Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and 
drink his blood, you shall not have life in you. 
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by 
the Father ; so he that eateth me, the same also 
shall live by me." 

Counsel. — The Jews, the evangelist tells us, 
could not understand how Christ's flesh could be 
actually present under the appearance of bread ; 
and, we are told, they withdrew from his com- 
pany. This is exactly what Protestants have 
done, fifteen centuries later, they " debated among 
themselves, saying : How can Christ give us his 
flesh to eat?" and withdrew from the True 
Church. Christ knew well the embarrassment 
of the Jews, yet he reaffirms his doctrine by 
emphatically declaring : " Amen, amen I say 
unto you : Unless you eat the flesh of the Son 
of man," etc. 

1 Cor. X. 16 — " The chalice of benediction which 



THE EUCHARIST. 105 

we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of 
Christ? And the bread which we break, is it 
not the partaking of the body of the Lord." 

" Which we bless, etc. " Here the Apostle puts 
them in mind of their partaking of the body and 
blood of Christ in the sacred mysteries, and be- 
coming thereby one mystical body with Christ. 
From whence he infers, ver. 21, that they who 
are made partakers with Christ, by the euchar- 
istic sacrifice, and sacrament, must not be made 
partakers with devils, by eating of the meats 
sacrificed to them. 

1 Cor. xi. 24, 25, 27, 29—" And giving thanks, 
broke, and said : Take ye, and eat : this is my 
body which shall be delivered for you : do this 
for the commemoration of me. — In like manner 
also the chalice, after he had supped, saying: 
This chalice is the new testament in my blood : 
this do ye, as often as you shall drink for the 
commemoration of me. — Therefore whosoever 
shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the 
Lord unworthily, he shall be guilty of the body 
and blood of the Lord. For he that eateth and 
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh judg- 



106 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

ment to himself, not discerning the body of the 
Lord." 

" Or drink." Here erroneous translators cor- 
rupted the Text, by putting and drink instead of 
or drink. " Guilty of the body, etc, not discern- 
ing the body etc." This demonstrates the real 
presence of the body and blood of Christ, even to 
the unworthy communicant ; who otherwise could 
not be guilty of the body and blood of Christ, or 
justly condemned for not discerning the Lord's 
body. 

St. John XX. 19 — "Now when it was late that 
same day, being the first day of the week, and the 
doors were shut, where the disciples were gathered 
together, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came, and 
stood in the midst, and said to them : Peace be 
to you." 

"The doors were shut." The same power 
which could bring Christ's whole body, entire in 
all its dimensions, through the doors, can, without 
the least question, make the same body really 
present in the sacrament ; though both the one 
and the other be above our comprehension. 

St. Maruthas. — " As often as we approach and 



THE EUCHARIST. 107 

receive on our hands the body and blood, we 
believe that we embrace his bod}^ and become, 
as it is written, flesh of his flesh and bone of his 
bones. For Christ did not call it the figure or 
species of his body, but he said, ' This truly is my 
body and this is my blood.' " Com. in Mat. 

St. Ignatius. — In speaking of the Docetae, a 
sect of heretics who held that Christ was only in 
appearance Man, says : " They stay away from 
the Eucharist and from prayer, because they will 
not acknowledge the Eucharist to be the flesh of 
our Saviour Jesus Christ, that flesh which suffered 
for our sins." 

St. Justin the Martyr. — " N"or do we take these 
gifts (in the Eucharist) as common bread and com- 
mon drink ; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour, made 
man by the word of God, took flesh and blood for 
our salvation, so in the same manner we have been 
taught that the food which has been blessed by 
prayer, and by which our blood and flesh, in the 
change, are nourished, is the flesh and blood of 
that Jesus incarnate." — Apol. I. 

St. Irenaeus. — In speaking of those heretics 
who denied the doctrine of the resurrection and 



108 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

that Christ was the Son of God, says, — " When 
the mingled chalice and the broken bread receive 
the word of God, they become the Eucharist of the 
body and blood of Christ, by which the substance 
of our flesh is increased and strengthened. How 
then can they pretend that this flesh is not sus- 
ceptible of eternal life which is nourished by the 
body and blood of the Lord and is his member ? " 

St. Jerome. — " There is as much difference be- 
twixt the loaves offered to God in the Old Law 
and the body of Jesus Christ, as betwixt the 
shadow and the body, betwixt the image and the 
truth." — Comment, in Ep. ad Tit. 

St. Chrysostom. — " How much greater holiness 
becomes thee, oh ! Christian, who hast received 
greater symbols than the Holy of Holies con- 
tained ; — for you have not the Cherubim but the 
Lord of the Cherubims dwelling in you; — you 
have not the Urn, and the Manna, and the Tables 
of Stone, and the Rod of Aaron, but the body 
and blood of our Lord." — Psalm 133. Again, — 
" This blood, even in the type, washed away sin. 
If it had so great power in the type, — if Death was 
so affrighted by the shadow, tell how it must be 



THE EUCHARIST. 109 

affrighted at the Verity itself. Truly tremendous 
are the mysteries of the Church ; truly tremend- 
ous are our altars ! " Horn. 46. 

St. Augustin. — (A proof of the Discipline of 
the Secret in the fourth century.) — " Christ does 
not commit himself to Catechumens. Ask a 
Catechumen, ' Dost thou believe ? ' — He answers, 
I do, and signs himself with the Cross of Christ ; 
— he is not ashamed of the cross of Christ, but 
bears it in his forehead. If we ask him, however, 
' Dost thou eat the flesh and drink the blood of 
the Son of Man ? ' he knows not what we mean, 
for Christ hath not committed himself to him. 
Catechumens do not know what Christians re- 
ceive." — Tractat. in Joam. 

St. Augustin. — (In his Exposition of the 98th 
Psalm.) — " Christ took upon him earth from the 
earth, because flesh is from the earth, and this 
flesh he took from the flesh of Mary : and because 
he here walked in this flesh, even this same flesh 
he gave us to eat for our salvation ; — but no one 
eateth this flesh without having first adored it, 
and not only do we not sin by adoring, but we 
even sin by not adoring it." 



110 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

St. James of Nisibis. — "Our Lord gave his 
body with his own hands, for food ; and his blood 
for drink, before he was crucified." — Serm. 14. 

St. Ephrem. — " The eye of faith manifestly be- 
holds the Lord, eating his body and drinking his 
blood, and indulges no curious inquiry." — De 
Nat. Dei. 

St. Cyril of Jerusalem. — " The Eucharistic 
bread, after the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is 
no loHger common bread, but the body of Christ." 
— Catech. 3. " Jesus Christ, in Cana of Galilee, 
once changed water into wine by his will only ; 
and shall we think him less worthy of credit, 
when he changes wine into blood ? " — Catech. 
Myst. 4. 

St. Gregory of Nyssa. — "This bread, as the 
Apostles say, is sanctified by the Word of God 
and prayer, — not that, as food, it passes into the 
body, but that it is instantly changed into the 
body of Christ, agreeably to what he said, ' This 
is my body.' "— Orat. Catech. 

St. Ambrose. — " Perhaps you will say, why do 
you tell me that I receive the body of Christ, when 
I see quite another thing ? We have this point, 



THE EUCHARIST. HI 

therefore, to prove. How many examples do we 
produce to show you that this is not what nature 
made it, but what the benediction has consecrated 
it; and that the benediction is of greater force 
than nature, because, by the benediction, nature 
itself is changed. Moses cast his rod on the 
ground, and it became a serpent ; he caught hold 
of the serpent's tail, and it recovered the nature 
of a rod. . . . Thou hast read the creation of the 
world : if Christ, by his word, was able to make 
something out of nothing, shall he not be thought 
able to change one thing into another?" — De 
Mysteriis. 

Grotius (Protestant). — "I find in all the Lit- 
urgies, Greek, Latin, Arabic, Syriac, and others, 
prayers to God that he would consecrate, by his 
Holy Spirit, the gifts offered, and make them the 
body and blood of his Son. I was right, there- 
fore, in saying that a custom so ancient and uni- 
versal that it must be considered to have come 
down from the primitive times, ought not to 
have been changed." — Votum Pro Pace. 

St. Gaudentius of Brescia. — " Believe what is 
announced to thee ; because what thou receivest 



112 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

is the body of that celestial bread, and the blood 
of that sacred vine ; for when he delivered con- 
secrated bread and wine to his disciples, thus he 
said, ' This is my body, this is my blood.' Let us 
believe him, whose faith we profess ; for truth 
cannot lie." — Tract. II. de Pasch. 

St. John Chrysostom. — " Thinkest thou that 
thou seest bread? that thou seest wine? that 
these things pass off as other foods do ? Far be 
it from thee to think so. But, as wax brought 
near to the fire loses its former substance, which 
no longer remains ; so do thou thus conclude 
that the mysteries (the bread and wine) are con- 
sumed by the substance of the body." — Hom. 9 
de Poenit. " But are there many Christs, as the 
offering is made in many places ? By no means : 
it is the same Christ every where, here entire, and 
there entire, one body. As then, though offered 
in many places, there is one body, and not many 
bodies, so there is one sacrifice." — Hom. 17, in • 
c. 9, ad bodies Hebr. 

Counsel. — Beginning about the close of the sec- 
ond century, and until the Edict of Toleration, by 
Emperor Constantine, in the beginning of the 



THE EUCHARIST. 113 

fourth century, the mysteries of religion, espe- 
cially those of the Trinity and the Eucharist, 
were carefully veiled from the uninitiated, by the 
Discipline of the Secret. This was done to pre- 
vent the charge of Polytheism and Idolatry, which 
confounded the religion of the Christians with 
that of the pagans. The doctrine of the Trinity 
seemed to support the idea of three Gods, and 
the Eucharistic Sacrifice bore a resemblance to the 
offerings of the pagans, for which reasons the 
Church met with serious opposition and many of 
her children were violently persecuted. And on 
this account the writings of the Fathers during 
the third and fourth centuries are necessarily 
ambiguous concerning these mysteries. It is 
through certain of these writings that Protestants 
labor to disprove the early belief in the corporal 
presence of Christ in the Blessed Elements. If 
we but remember Christ's personal injunction, 
"Do not feed pearls to swine," we know that he 
anticipated just such misunderstandings of his 
sacred teachings as caused his disciples to speak 
very guardedly when addressing those not yet of 
the true fold. Though they wrote and spoke in 



114 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

ambiguous language, we do not find them denying 
that Christ is really present in the Sacrifice of 
the Altar. It may be just inferred from some of 
their discourses that the Eucharist is a figurative 
type of Christ's sacrifice, as we may easily infer 
from the same documents that Christ as the Son 
of God is not equal to his Father. Nevertheless, 
we have an abundance of testimony to prove that 
the Roman Catholic belief in the Trinity and the 
Eucharist is the same as that of the Apostles. 
Besides, the use of the words Type, Figure, Sign, 
etc., as applied to the Eucharist at that time, and 
on which Protestants now base their belief of 
only a spiritual presence, is not to be found either 
in the Scriptures or in any of the pure Christian 
ecclesiastical writers of the first two centuries. 



CHAPTER IX. 

COMMUNION IN ONE KIND. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Jesus Christ is whole and entire, both under 
the form of bread and under the form of wine. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the 
Lay-people ; for both the parts of the Lord's 
Sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and command- 
ment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men 
alike.— Art. XXX. 

TESTIMONY. 

SuflScient to salvation, St. John vi. 51, 57, 58. — 
" I am the living bread, which came down from 
heaven. — He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh 
my blood, abideth in me, and I in him. — As the 
living Father hath sent me, and I live by the 
Father ; so he that eateth me, the same also shall 
live by me." 

ii5 



116 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Body and blood of Christ now inseparable, 
Romans vi. 9. — " Knowing that Christ, rising again 
from the dead, dieth now no more, death shall no 
more have dominion over him." 

Mention of one kind alone, St. Luke xxiv. 30, 
31. — "And it came to pass whilst he was at table 
with them, he took bread, and blessed, and brake, 
and gave to them. — And their eyes were opened ; 
and they knew him : and he vanished out of their 
sight." Acts ii. 42, 46. — " And they were per- 
severing in the doctrine of the Apostles, and in 
the communication of the breaking of bread, and 
in prayers. — And continuing daily with one ac- 
cord in the temple, and breaking bread from 
house to house, they took their meat with glad- 
ness and simjplicity of heart." Acts xx. 7. — " And 
on the first day of the week, when we assembled 
to break bread, Paul discoursed with them, being 
to depart on the morrow, and he continued his 
speech until midnight." 

"On the first day of the week." Here St. 
Chrysostom, with many other interpreters of the 
.Scriptures, explain, that the Christians, even at 
this time, must have changed the Sabbath into 



COMMUNION IN ONE KIND. II7 

the first day of the week, (the Lord's Day) as 
all Christians now keep it. This change was 
undoubtedly made by the authority of the 
Church : hence the exercise of the power, which 
Christ had given to her : for he is the Lord of 
the Sabbath. 

1 Corinthians x. 17. — "For we being many 
are one bread, one body, all who partake of 
one bread." 

" One bread ; " or, as it may be rendered 
agreeably both to the Latin and the Greek, be- 
cause the bread is one, all we, being many, are 
one body, who partake of that one bread. For 
it is by communicating with Christ, and with 
one another, in this blessed sacrament, that we 
are formed into one mystical body; and made, 
as it were, one bread, compounded of many 
grains of corn, closely united together. 

Counsel. — St. Paul tells us : " Christ being 
raised from the dead, dieth no more ; death 
shall have no dominion over him." His Blood 
cannot be really shed again. Where his Blood 
is, there is his Body. So under each form or 
species Christ is wholly present, living, and both 



118 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

God and man. The main objection, however, is to 
the Real Presence ; and as the Catholic doctrine 
on that point has been amply sustained by the 
testimony of the preceding chapter, any difficulty 
in regard to a belief in " The living bread," St. 
John vi. 51, that is, the changing of the bread 
alone into the body and blood, soul and divinity, 
of Jesus Christ, should be thereby removed, for 
the Body and Blood of our Saviour are hence- 
forth inseparable. Protestants generally adhere 
to the doctrine of the Incarnation, but they re- 
ject or deny that of Transubstantiation. The 
inconsistency of their position appears plainly 
from the following comparative reasoning : — 



*'They reject Transubstan- 
tiation. 

1— Because the senses judge 
the host to be mere bread. 

2 — Because one body will be 
in two or more places. 

3— Because the same body 
will move and not move, be 
visible and not visible, mortal 
and immortal, passible and im- 
passible. 

4— Because Christ would be 
in the form of a wafer. 

5— Because Christ's body 
would be in a form opposite 
to human nature. 



They should, to be consistent, 
reject the Incarnation. 

1 — Because the senses judge 
Christ to be mere man. 

2 — Because one person will be 
in two natures, 

3— Because the same person 
will be both God and man, visi- 
ble and not visible, mortal and 
immortal, passible and impas- 
sible, etc. 

4 — Because an immense God 
would be in the form of a 
simple man. 

5— Because God would be in a 
form opposite to divine nature. 



COMMUNION IN ONE KIND. 



119 



6— Because Christ's body 
would be eaten by sinners. 

7— How can Christ's body be 
confined in the tabernacle, and 
be also in heaven ? 

8— Because it appears absurd 
to adore Christ in the Sacra- 
ment. 



6— Because God would b« 
crucified by sinners. 

7— How can Christ be con- 
fined in the womb of a virgin, 
and be also in heaven ? 

8— Because it appears absurd 
to adore him who was born of a 
woman, and afterwards cruci- 
fied by man.'' 



CHAPTER X. 

THE MASS. 
CATHOLIC BELIEF. 

The Mass is the same sacrifice as that of the 
Cross, because the offering and the priest are the 
same — Christ our Blessed Lord ; and the ends for 
which the sacrifice of the Mass is offered are the 
same as those of tlie sacrifice of the Cross ; but in 
the Mass there is no real shedding of blood or 
real death. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The sacrifices of Masses, in which it was com- 
monly said that the priests did offer Christ for 
the quick and the dead, to have remission of pain 
or guilt, were blasphemous fables and dangerous 
deceits.— Art. XXXI. 

TESTIMONY. 

The sacrifice prefigured, Genesis xiv. 18. — "But 

Melchisedech, the king of Salem, bringing forth 

120 



THE MASS. 121 

bread and wine, for he was the Priest of the 
Most High God." 

Counsel. — " So far, indeed, from considering the 
Eucharist to be, itself, merely typical or symbol- 
ical, the early Christians, on the contrary, held it 
to be the accomplishment or reality of what had 
been but typical, under the Old Law. In 
the bread and wine offered by Melchisedech, 
the 'Priest of the Most High God,' they 
saw the figure or shadow of that Sacrifice 
which was to be instituted, from the same ele- 
ments, in the Eucharist, — the type, in short, of 
that great mystery of which the Eucharist is the 
reality and the verity." — Moore. 

Foretold, Malachias i. 10, 11. — "Who is there 
among you, that will shut the doors and will kindle 
the fire on my altar gratis ? I have no pleasure 
in you, saith the Lord of hosts : and I will not re- 
ceive a gift of your bread. — For from the rising 
of the sun even to the going down, my name 
is great among the Gentiles, and in every place 
there is sacrifice, and there is offered to my 
name a clean oblation: for my name is great 
among the Gentiles, saith the Lord of hosts." 



122 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

"A clean oblation," viz., The precious body 
and blood of Christ in the Eucharistic Sacrifice. 

Psalm cix. 4. — " The Lord hath sworn, and he 
Avill not repent : Tliou art a priest forever ac- 
cording to the order of Melchisedech." 

Christ's intention to offer sacrifice, 1 Cor. xi. 
24. — "This is my body which shall be delivered 
(Greek : which is broken) for you." Luke xxii. 
20. — " This is the chalice of the new testament in 
my blood, lohich shall be shed (Greek : poured out) 
for you." 

Instituted and celebrated by Christ himself, St. 
Luke xxii. 19, 20. — "And taking bread, he gave 
thanks, and brake, and gave to them, saying: 
This is my body which is given for you : Do this 
for a commemoration of me. — In like manner the 
chalice also, after he had supped, saying : This is 
the chalice, the new testament in my blood, which 
shall be shed for you." 

See Chapter VIII for annotations. 

Attested, 1 Cor. x. 16, 18, 19, 20, 21.—" The 
chalice of benediction which we bless, is it not 
the communion of the blood of Christ ? And the 
bread which we break, is it not the partaking of 



THE MASS. 123 

the body of the Lord. — Behold Israel, according 
to the flesh : are not they, who eat of the sacri- 
fices, partakers of the altars ? — What then ? Do 
I say, that what is offered in sacrifice to idols, is 
anything ? Or, that the idol is anything ? — But 
the things which the heathen sacrifice, they sacri- 
fice to devils, and not to God. And I would not 
that you should be made partakers with devils : 
you cannot drink the chalice of the Lord, and 
the chalice of devils : — You cannot be partakers 
of the table of the Lord, and of the table of 
devils." 

"Which we bless." See Chapter VIII for 
annotations. 

Hebrews xiii. 10. — " We have an altar, whereof 
they have no power to eat who serve the taber- 
nacle." 

1 Cor. ix. 13. — " Know you not, that they who 
work in the holy place, eat the things that are of 
the holy place : and they who serve the altar, 
partake with the altar ? " 

The Host, Apoc. ii. 17. — " To him, that over- 
Gometh, I will give the hidden manna, and will 
give him a white stone (counter) ; and in the 



124 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

stone a new name written, which no man 
knoweth, but he that receiveth it." 

Use of candles, Acts xx. 7, 8. — " And on the 
first day of the week, when we assembled to break 
bread, Paul discoursed with them, being to de- 
part on the morrow, and he continued his speech 
till midnight. — And there was a great number of 
lamps in the upper chamber, where we were as- 
sembled." 

Holy Water, Numbers v. 17. — " And he shall 
take holy water in an earthen vessel ; and he 
shall cast a little earth of the pavement of the 
tabernacle into it." Sprinkling the congregation 
before High Mass, Psalm L.IX.--"Thou shalt 
sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop, and I shall be 
cleaned." 

Liturgy, St. Irenaeus, in the year 167, says : — 
" The liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice, or the Mass, 
must have been modeled according to the vision 
of that favorite disciple of our Lord, (St. John)." 
— Rock's Hierurgia, p. 266. 

St. Cyprian. — "Towards the end of his ex- 
planation of the Lord's prayer, testifies that in 
his time the following preface was used in the 



THE MASS. 125 

Mass : ' Sursum corda ' : ' Raise up your hearts 
on high ' ; and that the people answered : ' Habe- 
mus ad Dominum ' : ' We have raised them up to 
the Lord.' The very same words are at the pres- 
ent day used by the Catholic Church in the very 
same part of the Holy Mass. Cyprian died about 
A. D. 258 ; if he were to come back to earth 
where would he find the ceremony he attended in 
his day ? What better proof that Christ's Church 
never changes." 

St. Irenaeus. — " Likewise he declared the cup 
to be his blood, and taught the new Oblation of 
the New Testament, which oblation the Church, 
receiving from the Apostles, offers it to God over 
all the earth." Again, " Therefore, the offering 
of the Church, which the Lord directed to be 
made over all the world, was deemed a pure 
sacrifice before God and received by him." 

" New Oblation." Anciently called the Sacri- 
fice of the New Testament, or Catholic Sacrifice, 
the word Mass not having been introduced till 
about the time of St. Ambrose (334-397). 

The Centuriators of Magdeburg, — whose zeal 
and acuteness displayed in the Protestant cause 



126 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

are well known, — have been constrained reluct- 
antly to own that the existence of the Sacrifice 
of the New Law stands recorded in the early 
monuments of Christianity ; and on the passage 
of St. Irenaeus here referred to, they express 
their acknowledgment in terms of indignation." 
— Coombe's Essence of Religious Controversy. 

St. Justin the Martyr has left an interesting 
description of the ceremony of the Mass : — " To 
him who presides over the brethren is presented 
bread and a cup of water and wine, which he, 
taking, gives praise and glory to the Father, 
through the name of the Son and of the Holy 
Ghost, and returns thanks in many prayers, that 
such gifts have been vouchsafed to us. These 
being duly performed, the whole assembly in ac- 
clamation answers, ' Amen ' ; then the ministers, 
whom we call deacons, give to each one present, 
to partake of the blessed bread, and the wine and 
water, and take some to the sick. This food we 
call the Eucharist, of which they alone are allow- 
ed to partake who believe the doctrines taught 
us to be true, and have been washed by baptism 
for £he remission of sins, and unto regeneration. 



THE MASS. 127 

Nor do we take these gifts as common bread and 
common drink ; but in the same manner as our 
Saviour, Jesus Christ, incarnate by the word of God 
for our salvation, took flesh and blood, so we have 
been taught that the food wherewith, by change, 
our blood and flesh are nourished, being blessed 
by the prayer of His word, becomes the flesh and 
blood of that very incarnate Jesus." — Apologia I, 
Hagae Comitium, 742, pp. 83, 88. 

Counsel. — The Mass is the center and soul of 
Catholic worship. It is the unbloody repetition 
of the Sacrifice of the Cross. In the Mass, as 
on the Cross, Christ himself is both the victim 
and the offerer. The priest simply repeats the 
words used at the first Mass, the Lord's Supper : 
" This is my body ; this is my blood." As a su- 
preme act of love our Saviour has given us His 
own flesh and blood to be our daily food. If 
it is reasonable to believe that He gave his life 
on the cross for our redemption, it is just as 
reasonable to believe that He, out of His infinite 
love, has given us an altar whose sacrifice is 
the greatest which can be offered to God, viz., 
the body and blood, soul and divinity of Jesus 



128 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Christ. The greatest sacrifice one man can make 
for another is to lay down his life for him ; 
Avherefore it only requires that we appreciate 
the extent of God's love for us, in order to have 
faith in this most sublime mystery. Confess 
that we have Jesus Christ really and truly pres- 
ent on our altars, and behold what an appro- 
priate object of worship is ours ! In instituting 
the sacrament of the altar Christ said, " This is 
my body." No words could be plainer and less 
capable of misinterpretation. If He meant to 
speak figuratively or metaphorically He would 
have said, " My body is this," or, " My body is 
bread." The Church teaches that Christ meant 
literally what He said, just as the voice from 
heaven did when it declared, " This is my be- 
loved Son, in whom I am well pleased : hear 
ye him." (Mat. xvii. 5). Of course the sacrifice 
of the altar is a great mystery ; but is it harder 
to comprehend than the mystery of the cross? 
It is equally as diJfficult to understand how the 
Second Person of the Blessed Trinity lived and 
was crucified in human flesh, as it Ls to under- 
stand how the same Infinite Person offers him- 



THE MASS. 129 

self a Sacrifice on our altars under the appear- 
ance of bread and wine. Both are mysteries 
which we believe but cannot comprehend with 
our finite minds. If the Son of God expiated 
for the sins of the world by His painful and igno- 
minious death on the cross, which Protestants 
and Catholics alike believe ; what a beautiful, 
wonderful, doctrine, that in the painless and 
glorious Sacrifice of the altar He offers Himself 
as a miraculous food to give us grace and 
strength to resist sin and temptation and by 
enabling us to partake of the one bread to make 
us all one with Him in heaven. Protestant 
friends, you have heard and read that Catholics 
worship saints and images; don't judge us so 
harshly ; with Christ present on our altars, 
what need have we to worship aught but God 
himself. 

" We have an Altar," says St. Paul, " where- 
of they have no right to eat who serve the taber- 
nacle." And yet (observes St. Thomas Aquinas 
on this passage) those who served the tabernacle 
had the Jigure of Jesus Christ in their sacrifices. 
Where, then, would be the advantage that the 



130 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Law of Grace professes to have over the Syna- 
gogue? If the Manna of the desert and the 
Eucharist are both alike but the image of His 
body, wherefore does the Saviour mark out that 
essential difference between them that the former 
was but a food miraculously formed in the air, 
which gave not life, while the latter is " the bread 
which Cometh from heaven," and which, if any 
man eat of, " he shall live for ever." (John vi.) 



CHAPTER XI. 

PEXANCE. 
CATHOLIC CIIEED. 

Penakce is a Sacrament in which the sins com- 
mitted after Baptism are forgiven. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Penance is not to be counted a Sacrament of 
the Gospel, it having grown partly of the corrupt 
following of the Apostles, and having no visible 
sign or ceremony ordained of God. — Art. XXV. 

TESTIMONY. 

Ezechiel xviii. 30 — " Be converted, and do pen- 
ance for all your iniquities, and iniquity shall not 
be your ruin." 

St. Luke xiii. 5 — " I tell you : No : but unless 
you do penance, you shall all likewise perish." 

Romans ii. 4, 5 — " Or despisest thou the riches 

of his goodness, and patience, and long-suffering ? 

Knowest thou not that the benignity of God lead- 

131 



132 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

eth thee to penance ? — But according to thy hard- 
ness, and impenitent hearty thou treasurest up to 
thyself wrath, against the day of wrath, and 
revelation of the just judgment of God." 

Romans viii. 17 — "And if sons, heirs also; 
heirs indeed of God, and joint-heirs with Christ : 
yet so if v^e suffer with him^ that we may be also 
glorified with him." 

Matt. iii. 8 — " Bring forth, therefore, fruit 
worthy of penance." 

Effect of sin, 1 Cor. iii. 17— "But if any man 
violate the temple of God : him shall God de- 
stroy. For the temple of God is holy, which you 
are." Ephesians iv. 30. — "And grieve not the 
Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed unto 
the day of redemption." 

Speaking of penance as a sacrament, the Cate- 
chism of the Council of Trent says : " That pen- 
ance is a sacrament the pastor will not find it diffi- 
cult to establish : baptism is a sacrament because 
it washes away all, particularly original sin : pen- 
ance also washes away all sins of thought or deed 
committed after baptism ; on the same principle, 
therefore, penance is a sacrament. Again, and 



PENANCE. 133 

the argument is conclusive, a sacrament is the 
sign of a sacred thing, and what is done externally 
by the priest and penitent is a sign of what takes 
place, internally in the soul : the penitent un- 
equivocally expresses, by words and actions, that 
he has turned from sin ; the priest, too, by word 
and actions, gives us easily to understand, that 
the mercy of God is exercised in the remission of 
sin : this is also clearly evinced by these words 
of the Saviour : " I will give to thee the keys of 
the kingdom of heaven, whatever sins you loose 
on earth shall be loosed, also, in heaven." The 
absolution of the priest, which is expressed in 
words, seals, therefore, the remission of sins, 
which it accomplishes in the soul, and thus is 
penance invested with all the necessary con- 
ditions of a sacrament, and is, therefore, truly a 
sacrament. 

That penance is not only to be numbered 
amongst the sacraments, but also amongst the 
sacraments that may be repeated, the faithful 
are next to be taught. To Peter asking if sin 
may be forgiven seven times, our Lord replies : 
" I say, not seven times, but seventy times seven." 



134 THE CHURCH OF ©OD ON TRIAL. 

Whenever, therefore, the ministry of the priest 
is to be exercised towards those who seem to 
diffide in the infinite goodness and mercy of God, 
the zealous pastor will seek to inspire them with 
confidence, and to reanimate their hopes of 
obtaining the grace of God. 

As, then, amongst the sacraments there is 
none on which the faithful should be hetter in- 
formed^ they are to be taught that it differs 
from the other sacraments in this ; the matter of 
the other sacraments is some production of 
nature or art ; but the acts of the penitent, con- 
trition, confession, and satisfaction, constitute, 
as has been defined by the Council of Trent, the 
matter as it were of the sacrament of penance. 

Speaking further on this same subject the holy 
Council adds, that : " The sacrament of penance 
is indispensably necessary for those who have 
fallen into sin after baptism, for without this 
sacrament they are unable to recover the justice 
which they have lost." It is for the above reason 
that the Fathers of the Church have styled this 
sacrament the " second baptism," or, the *' plank 
after shipwreck." By baptism we embark on the 



PENANCE. 135 

ship that is bound for the port of salvation. By 
mortal sin we are shipwrecked ; and in this case 
our only hope of rescue is by clinging to a plank 
and the sacrament of penance is that plank — the 
only one that can save us from eternal destruction 
unless God were to work a miracle in our behalf, 
and that is not at all likely. Again, no one who 
has been bitten by the serpent, the devil, can 
be cured unless he discover his hurt to the physi- 
cian, and the physician is the priest in the tribu- 
nal of penance where he sits as the represent- 
ative of Christ who is willing and anxious to 
cure us of all our sins, and is ever ready to say 
to us as he said to the penitent of his own time, 
" Go, and sin no more." 

Counsel. — The parts of Penance are : contri- 
tion, confession, and satisfaction, that is, (1) the 
penitent must be truly sorry for his sins and be 
desirous of being reconciled to God ; (2) he must 
humbly and without reserve confess all his griev- 
ous sins to a duly authorized priest ; (3) and he 
must make satisfaction, by performing the pen- 
ance imposed upon him through his confessor, by 
praying and fasting, by doing works of mercy 



136 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

and charity, and by patiently bearing the tern- 
poral scourges inflicted upon him by God. 

That Christ requires us to be sorry for our sins 
and to confess them to His priests, and that He 
has given His priests the power of absolving re- 
pentant sinners, which have always been the doc- 
trines of the Catholic Church since the time of 
the Apostles, are forcibly and uncontrovertibly 
proven by the testimony collected in the next 
two chapters. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CONFESSION. 
TESTIMONY. 

Numbers v. 6, 7 — "Say to the children of 
Israel : When a man or woman shall have com- 
mitted any of all the sins that men are wont to 
commit, and by negligence shall have trans- 
gressed the commandment of the Lord, and of- 
fended, — They shall confess their sins, and re- 
store the principal itself, and the fifth part over 
and above, to him against whom they have 
sinned." 

" Shall confess," etc. This confession and sat- 
isfaction, ordained in the Old Law, was a figure 
of the Sacrament of Penance. 

St. Matthew iii. 6 — " And they were baptized 
by him in the Jordan, confessing their sins." 

Acts xix. 18 — "And many of those who be- 
lieved, came confessing and declaring their 

deeds." 

137 



138 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

St. James v. 16 — " Confess, therefore, your 
sins one to another ; and pray for one another, 
that you may be saved : for the continual prayer 
of a just man availeth much." 

" Confess your sins one to another." That is, 
to the priests of the Church, whom, ver. 14, he 
had ordered to be called for, and brought into 
the sick: moreover, to confess to persons who 
had no power to forgive sins would be useless. 
Hence the precept here means, that we must con- 
fess to men whom God hath appointed, and who, 
by their ordination and jurisdiction, have received 
the power of remitting sins in His name. 

The obligation of confession is gathered from 
the judiciary power of binding and loosing, for- 
giving and retaining sins, given to the pastors of 
Christ's Church, St. Matthew xviii. 18 ; St. John 
XX. 22, 23. 

St. Clement. — " Let us also while we are in this 
world, repent with our whole heart of the evil 
deeds we have done in the flesh, for after we have 
gone out of the world no further power of con- 
fessing and repenting will there belong to us." — 
2d Ep. c. 8. 



CONFESSION. 139 

St. Barnabas (Apostolical Father). — "Confess 
your sins ; do not come to prayer with a bad con- 
science ; this is the way of light." — Ep. c. 19. 

Didache of the Twelve Apostles. — " Coming to- 
gether on the Lord's day, break bread and give 
thanks, confessing your transgressions, that your 
sacrifice may be pure." — c. 14. 

Tertullian. — " If you shrink back from exomo- 
logesis (the whole external act of penance), con- 
sider in your heart hell, which exomologesis will 
extinguish for you ; and imagine first the magni- 
tude of the penalty, that you may not hesitate 
about the adoption of the remedy." — Migne I. 
1358. 

St. Cyprian. — "Moreover we do not prejudge 
when the Lord is to be judge ; save that if He 
shall find the repentance of the sinners full and 
sound. He will then ratify what shall have been 
here determined by us. If, however, any one 
should delude us with the pretense of repentance, 
God, who is not mocked, and who looks into man's 
heart, will judge of those things that we have im- 
perfectly looked into, and the Lord will amend 
the sentence of his servants." — Migne III. 808. 



140 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Again: "I entreat you, beloved brethren, that 
each one should confess his own sin, while he 
who has sinned is still in this world, while his 
confession may be received, while satisfaction 
and the remission made by the priests is pleasing 
to the Lord."— lb. IV. 503. 

St. Ambrose. — " Sin is not taken away except 
by tears and penance. Neither an angel nor an 
archangel (can take it away) ; the Lord Himself 
who alone can say, ' I am with you,' (Matt, xxviii. 
20), does not forgive, if we sin, unless we repent." 
(In his letter to Emperor Theodosius.) — Migne 
XVI. 1212. 

St. Augustine. — (Speaking of the man who 
falls into sin after baptism and foolishly refuses 
to change his life.) " Bound in the chains of 
sins so deadly, he refuses, delays or hesitates to 
fly to those Keys of the Church by which he may 
be loosed on earth that he may be loosed in 
heaven." — Migne XXXIX. 1545. Again, referring 
to the Novatians : " Nor are we to listen to those 
who deny the Church of God can remit all sins." 
— lb. XL. 308. Again, speaking of the repentant 
sinner : « Let him come to the priests by whom 



CONFESSION. 141 

those Keys are administered for him in the 
Church."— lb. XXXIX. 1545. Again: "Our 
merciful God wills us to confess in this world 
that we may not be confounded in the other." — 
Hom. 20. 

St. Gregory of Nyssa, — " Show me bitter tears 
that I may mingle mine with yours. Impart 
your trouble to the priest, as to your father ; he 
will be touched with a sense of your misery. 
Show to him what is concealed, without blush- 
ing ; open the secrets of your soul, as if you were 
showing to a physician a hidden disorder ; he will 
take care of your honor and of your cure." — Serm. 
de Poenit. 

Origen. — "Only let the sinner carefully con- 
sider to whom he should confess his sins, what is 
the character of the physician ; if he be one who 
will be weak with the weak, who will weep with 
the sorrowful, and who understands the discipline 
of condolence and fellow-feeling: so that when 
his skill shall be known, and one his pity felt^ 
you may follow what he shall advise." — Hom. 2, 
in Psalm 27. Again : " If we discover our sins, 
not only to God, but to those who may thus apply 



142 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

a remedy to our wounds and iniquities, our sins 
will be effaced by Him who said, ' I have blotted 
out thy iniquities as a cloud, and thy sins as a 
mist.' " — Homil. 17, in Lucam. 

Counsel. — The whole order of sin may be 
divided into three classes: (1) those which we 
commit against our own rights and persons ; (2) 
those which we commit against the rights and 
persons of society or its component parts ; and (3) 
those which we commit against the rights and 
persons of the spiritual kingdom, especially 
against the Divinity. Every sin, however, which 
violates either a moral or spiritual law is an of- 
fense against God and must be atoned for as 
such. Having made this division let us consider 
the various tribunals before which the several 
classes of sins are tried and by which punishment 
and pardon are decreed. The fathers of the 
Reformation taught the doctrine that we " are 
justified by faith alone," and that God exacts no 
other retribution for sin. This false doctrine is 
consistently preached by the Reform ministers* 
because in order to pass judgment and penance 
upon a wrong-doer there must be a living, visible 



CONFESSION. 143 

court, having Divine authority, to determine the 
guilt and to pronounce the sentence, such as the 
Confessional — against which the Reformers pro- 
tested. God, be it remembered is the fountain- 
head of Justice and Judgment ; these are " the 
powers from God," and to the extent that they 
are lawfully administered in this world either by 
the civil authorities or by individuals they come 
from God. And every abuse of them will be 
rectified in the final Judgment. The felon linger- 
ing in a dungeon cell on account of some atro- 
cious crime ; the invalid prostrated on a hospital 
cot as a result of physical imprudence ; and the 
famished street beggar, reduced to want by early 
extravagances and dissipations, are all suffering 
the penalties which invariably follow the viola- 

NoTE. — Nothing else is required of penitents, but 
that, after each has examined himself diligently, and 
searched all the folds and recesses of his conscience, he 
confess those sins by which he shall remember that he 
has mortally offended his Lord and God ; whilst the 
other sins, which do not occur to him after diligent 
thought, are understood to be included as a whole, in 
that same confession," 



144 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

tion of certain laws instituted or authorized by 
the Creator of all things. If faith alone were 
sufficient to satisfy for all those transgressions, 
with what impunity we might all become male- 
factors! Nevertheless, separate tribunals exist 
for the trial of the three general classes of wrongs, 
above mentioned ; and the ministers in each are 
respectively known as Doctors, Lawyers, and 
Priests. God, we know, and He alone, could for- 
give all kinds of sin, without the intervention 
of a human minister ; yet for each division He 
has authorized or personally established a tem- 
poral tribunal, presided over by mortals like our- 
selves and having final jurisdiction. Among these 
the Confessional is regarded by some as an un- 
natural, inhuman, and un-Godly institution ; 
whereas it is in perfect harmony with the great 
plan of Justice. 

Having created a universe in which every 
human creature must render an account of his or 
her life's conduct, it is impossible for God now, in 
the absence of a favorable account, to save a 
single soul. Though He has purchased redemp- 
tion for each one of us we are still free to accept 



CONFESSION, 145 

or reject this redemption. If God were to make 
exceptions to this law, if He were to show favor 
to one and not to another, He would not be an 
impartial, and therefore merciful, Judge. And if 
the law of individual atonement did not exist, 
that is, if all souls, without exception or condi- 
tion, were assuredly destined to a life of eternal 
happiness, all religion would be useless and 
vain. 

Patriotism is to the State what faith is to God ; 
imagine what would be the condition of society 
if the State were to abolish its law courts and 
depend upon patriotism for the prevention of 
crime. Justice without a court is like medicine 
without a physician. " That is so," our Protes- 
tant friends assent, "but we acknowledge our 
sins direct to God without the intermediary of a 
priest." Let us ask then what sentence He im- 
poses upon each of you ; what personal advice He 
gives you as to the necessity of avoiding the oc- 
casions of your particular sin ; and what assurance 
have you that your act of reparation has satisfied 
His justice ? These are important questions ; it 
is too late to defer them until death, for then 



146 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

comes the final judgment from which there shall 
be no appeal, of which there shall be no revoca- 
tion or commutation. What else could our Lord 
have meant when He said to His apostles : " Re- 
ceive ye the Holy Ghost — Whose sins you shall 
forgive, they are forgiven them : and whose sins 
you shall retain, they are retained ; " than that 
the pastors of His Church be constituted a tribu- 
nal for the trial of offenses under the moral and 
spiritual law. Ah, if we could but appreciate the 
enormity of one mortal sin, the effect it leaves on 
our souls, how glad we would be to have a living, 
visible tribunal, speaking as the Holy Ghost, be- 
fore whom we may charge ourselves with our 
sins, express our contrition, ask forgiveness, and, 
when we hear the words, " thy sins are forgiven 
thee, resolve to sin no more," know that the 
minister delivers not his own judgment but the 
judgment of God. Protestant friends, if you once 
felt the hope, vigor, and consolation which a 
sincere penitent derives from a recourse to the 
confessional, all your prejudices and misconcep- 
tions would immediately vanish. 

Up to this time God has ministered to men en- 



CONFESSION. 147 

tirely through men. The greatest mystery of 
religion, the Incarnation, was accomplished 
through a woman ; the great act of the Redemp- 
tion was suffered by a man ; the Gospels were 
written by men; the Church was founded or 
built upon a man, Peter ; and to men, the Apos- 
tles and their successors, Christ intrusted the 
care of His flock until His second coming : would 
it not be supremely singular if God did not also 
give the Power of the Keys to those whom He 
ordained " to baptize and to teach all nations," — 
to those whom He delegated every power, for 
our salvation, which He himself personally ex- 
ercised through the Son of the Virgin Mary ? 



CHAPTER XIII. 

ABSOLUTION. 
TESTIMONY. 

TnE power promised and given to the pastors 
of the Church, St. Matthew xvi. 19— "And I will 
give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven : 
and whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it 
shall be bound also in heaven : and whatsoever 
thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also 
in heaven." 

" Loose upon earth." The loosing the bands of 
temporal punishments due to sin, is called an in- 
dulgence, the power of which is here granted. 

St. Matthew xvii. 18 — "Amen I say to you, 
whatsoever you shall bind upon earth, shall be 
bound also in heaven : and whatsoever you shall 
loose upon earth, shall be loosed in heaven." 

St. John XX. 22, 23—" When he had said this, he 
breathed on them and he said to them : Receive 

148 



ABSOLUTION. 149 

ye the Holy Ghost — Whose sins you shall forgive, 
they are forgiven them : and whose sins you shall 
retain, they are retained." 

" Whose sins," etc. See here the commission, 
stamped by the broad seal of Heaven, by virtue 
of which the pastors of Christ's Church absolve 
repenting sinners upon their confession. 

St. Matthew ix. 6 — " But, that you may know 
that the Son of man hath power on earth to for- 
give sins, then, saith he to the man sick of the 
palsy : Rise up, take thy bed, and go into the 
house." 

" Son of man." Here he asserts His power to 
forgive sins as man, 

Origen (185-254). — "Against him, therefore, 
who judges unjustly, and binds on earth not 
according to the word of God, and loosens not 
according to His judgment, against him the gates 
of hell prevail. He, however, against whom the 
gates of hell do not prevail judges justly. There- 
fore he has the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
opening to those who are loosed on earth that 
they may be loosed and freed in heaven, and 
closing to those who by his just judgment have 



150 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

been bound on earth, that they may be bound 
and condemned in heaven." — Migne XIII. 1013. 
Again : " He on whom Jesus hath breathed as He 
did on His Apostles, and who by his fruits can be 
known to have received the Holy Ghost, and to 
have been made spiritual so as to be led by the 
Spirit of God, as sons are, to do what is reason- 
ably done, — he remits what God would remit, and 
retains sins that are incurable; ministering to 
God who alone has power to remit sin, as the 
prophets ministered to Him in speaking not 
their own thoughts but the thoughts that His 
divine will commanded." — Migne XI. 528. 

St. Cyprian. — "Man cannot be greater than 
God, nor can the servant remit by his own indul- 
gence what has been committed by a graver crime 
against the Lord." — Migne IV. 496. Again: 
" Whence we perceive that only they who are set 
over the Church and established in the Gospel 
law, and in the ordinance of the Lord, are allowed 
to baptize and to give remission of sins. — " lb. III. 
1159. 

St. Pacian. — " ' But,' thou wilt say, < you forgive 
sin to the penitent, whereas it is allowed to you to 



ABSOLUTION. 151 

remit sin only in baptism.' Not to me at all, but 
to God only, who both in Baptism forgiveth the 
guilt incurred, and rejecteth not the tears of the 
penitent. But what I do, I do not by my own 

right, but by the Lord's Wherefore, 

whether we baptize, whether we constrain to pen- 
ance, or grant pardon to the penitent, we do this 
by the authority of Christ."— Migne XII. 1068. 
Again : " Never would God threaten the impeni- 
tent, unless he would pardon the penitent. ' This,' 
you will say, ' God alone can do.' It is true. 
But that also which He does through His priest, 
is His own authority. Else what is that which 
He saith to the Apostles, ' Whatsoever ye shall 
bind on earth, shall be bound in heaven, and 
whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed 
in heaven ? ' Why say He this, if it was not law- 
ful for men to bind and loose ? Is this allowed 
to Apostles only ? Then to them also only is it 
allowed to baptize, and to them only to give the 
Holy Spirit, and to them only to cleanse the sins 
of nations ; for all this was enjoined on none 
other but Apostles."— Migne XIII. 1057. 

St. Ephraem.— " They (the Manichaens) distort 



t 
152 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

according to their caprice the word of the True 
One who granted to His disciples the power to 
remit sin only once by water and gave them also 
the power to loose and bind." — Ephraem's Hymns. 
Against Heresies. Speaking of this very Hymn, 
J. S. Assemani, the accomplished Syrian scholar, 
says : — " It (the Hymn) speaks very clearly of the 
Power of the Keys granted to the Church, and 
lays down the necessity of a laborious penance." 
St. Ambrose. — " They (the Novatians) say that 
they show reverence to the Lord, for whom alone 
they reserve the power of forgiving sins. But 
none do Him greater injury than they who re- 
scind his commands and resign the office intrusted 
to them. For since the Lord Jesus Himself says 
in the Gospel, * Whose sins you shall forgive they 
are forgiven, and whose sins you shall retain they 
are retained, who is it that gives Him honor, he 

who obeys the command or he who resists ? 

Both (the power of loosing and the power of bind- 
ing) are granted to the Church, both are not 
granted to heresy. For this right is granted to 
priests alone. Rightly then does the Church 
that has real priests, claim this power, heresy 



ABSOLUTION. 153 

that has not priests of God cannot claim it. By 
not claiming it, heresy passes sentence on itself, 
that, as not having priests, it must not claim 
the priestly right." — Migne XVI. 487. Again : 
— " Now let us see whether the Holy Ghost con- 
dones sins. But there can be no doubt on this 
point, since the Lord Himself has said, * Receive 
ye the Holy Ghost, whose sins you shall forgive,' 
they are forgiven.' Behold how sins are forgiven 
by the Holy Ghost. Men give the use of their 
ministry for the remission of sin, they do not ex- 
ercise the right of any power. For not in their 
own name, but in the name of the Father, of the 
Son, and of the Holy Ghost do they remit sins. 
They supplicate, the Divinity condones. The 
service is human, the munificence is of celestial 
power."— Migne XVI. 842. 

St. Chrysostom. — " The Jewish priests had the 
power to cleanse the leprosy of the body, or rather 
not to cleanse it at all, but to decide on those who 
were clean, and you know what struggles there 
were for the sacerdotal dignity then. But these 
(the priests of the New Law) have received 
power not to cleanse the leprosy of the body but 



154 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the uncleanness of the soul, not to decide that 
it is cleansed, but to cleanse it absolutely ; so that 
they who despise them are much more wicked 
and worthy of a greater punishment than Dathan 
and his associates." — Migne XL VIII. 644. 

St. Jerome. — "But in accordance with his 
office when he (the priest and bishop) has heard 
the various sins, he knows who is to be bound 
and who is to be loosened." — Migne XXVI. 122. 

St. Augustin. — " The words, ' Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost,' show that it is not men who remit 
sin but the Holy Ghost through them^ as the Gos- 
pel says in another place : ' It is not you that 
speak, but the spirit of your Father that speak- 
eth in you,"— Migne XLIII. 67. 

Counsel. — It is alleged that some vicious 
men may be invested with this power of forgiv- 
ing sins. In answer, Judas was the most abom- 
inable traitor that ever lived. Yet we all know 
that Christ conferred upon him the power of ad- 
ministering Baptism and of working miracles ! 
Christ admitted him into His own sacred com- 
pany, and never deprived him of the powers then 
conferred upon him. The traitor was tolerated 



ABSOLUTION. 155 

to the end, and his first suspension was by his 
own hand. But the Church has always been very 
careful about permitting any priest whose char- 
acter is bad, to perform the priestly functions. 
If there is any good proof of his being negligent 
or wicked in performing his duty to God, — and 
any Catholic knowing of such is bound to report 
it to the Bishop, — he is quickly stripped of all 
ecclesiastical power. Besides, it must be remem- 
bered, that every priest of Christ, even the Pope, 
is bound to confess his sins to another priest, 
and to do penance, as often as he offends his 
heavenly Father. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

INDULGENCES. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

An Indulgence is the remission in whole or in 
part of the teinjyoral punishment which is due to 
the justice of God after the sin and its eternal 
punishment are remitted. To gain an indulgence 
we must be in the state of grace and perform the 
works enjoined. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Romish doctrine of Pardons (Indulgences) 
is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded 
upon no warranty of Scriptures, but rather re- 
pugnant to the Word of God. — Art. XXII. 

TESTIMONY. 

The power of granting them, St. Matthew xvi. 

19 — "And I will give to thee the keys of the 

kingdom of heaven : and whatsoever thou shalt 

156 



INDULGENCES. 157 

bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven : 
and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it 
shall be loosed also in heaven." 

" Loose upon earth." The loosing the bands of 
temporal punishments due to sins is called an 
indulgence ; the power of which is here granted. 

The use of this power, 2 Cor.ii. 6, 7, 8, 10— "To 
him who is such a one, this rebuke is sufficient, 
which is given by many : — So that on the con- 
trary you shall rather forgive him, and comfort 
him, lest perhaps such a one be swallowed up 
with overmuch sorrow. — Wherefore I beseech 
you, that you would confirm your charity towards 
him. And to whom you have forgiven anything, 
I also : for, what I forgave, if I have forgiven 
anything, for your sakes I have done it in the 
person of Christ." 

" I also." The apostle here granted an indul- 
gence, or pardon, in the person and by the author- 
ity of Christ, to the incestuous Corinthian, whom 
before he had put under penance : which pardon 
consisted in a releasing of part of the temporal 
punishment due to his sin. 

God does not always remit the temporal punish- 



158 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

ment with sin itself and the eternal punishment, 
as is manifest from the words of the prophet 
Nathan to David, 3 Kings xii. 13, 14 — " The Lord 
also hath taken away thy sin ; nevertheless, be- 
cause thou hast given occasion to the enemies of 
the Lord to blaspheme, for this thing the child 
that is born of thee shall surely die." 

At the intercession of martyrs, on their way to 
execution, bishops frequently granted an indul- 
gence to penitents, as Tertullian (Ad Martyr, c. 
1 and Cyprian (Ep. 9, 10, 13) assure us. 

Counsel. — Perhaps no doctrine of the Church 
has been so generally misunderstood or so bitterly 
opposed as that of Indulgences. The popular 
notion outside of the Catholic Church is that an 
indulgence is a license to commit sin, whereas it 
is a preventive of sin. It is impossible for a per- 
son in the state ofshi to obtain an indulgence. The 
purpose of an indulgence is to remove the stain 
of sin after the sin itself has been forgiven, and 
it is only obtained by the performance of certain 
good works. It is difiScult to understand why 
Protestants object to this most salutary practice, 
falsely accusing the Church of thus encouraging 



INDULGENCES. 159 

the commission of sin. They teach that sinners 
are saved by faith alone ; while the Church 
teaches that we must supplement our faith with 
a satisfaction for our sins. Now which is the 
easier way to be relieved from the effects of sin : 
by merely excercising faith, or by doing penance 
with an enlivened faith? Where then is the 
license to commit sin in the Catholic method ? 

Our Lord, by His death on the cross, redeemed 
the world ; but death, and the other temporal 
punishments of Adam's sin, remain. So, too, 
though in the Sacrament of Penance we are for- 
given the eternal punishments due to mortal sin, 
many temporal punishments remain. The re- 
mission of these temporal punishments, in whole 
or in part, is an Indulgence. 

Could they but realize the difficulty the Catho- 
lic has in really gaining an indulgence they would 
readily admit that instead of being a license to 
commit sin, that an indulgence really acts as a 
preventative, for it brings to mind very vividly 
the real enormity of the offense which requires 
such rigorous penances for its forgiveness. It 
would be well for our adversaries to recall to 



160 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

mind the practice of the Church in the early days 
of her history if they would get a correct idea of 
her teaching on this subject. We know that in 
times of great persecutions it was her prac- 
tice to inflict severe penances on those of her 
children who wavered in their faith or in their 
allegiance to her rigid rules, and that she after- 
wards commuted them to lesser ones, and even 
remitted them altogether if the penitent showed 
signs of true sorrow, or, as often happened, one 
who was about to suffer martyrdom interceded 
for him. In later times when she changed 
her discipline in this particular, she allowed 
the repentant sinner to discharge the debt of 
temporal punishment due to sin by means of 
pilgrimages, the crusades, and even alms giving. 
In later times the Church substituted works more 
easy of accomplishment, such as prayer, etc., but 
she has ever and always taught that indulgences, 
far from being a license to commit sin, only re* 
mit the temporal punishment due to sin. To 
gain an indulgence we must be in a state of grace ; 
for, as a member of the body that has become 
dead through disease cannot be revived by any 



INDULGENCES. 161 

medicine that might be administered, so too the 
soul which is dead from sin cannot be brought 
to life by any indulgence that we may attempt to 
gain. 



CHAPTER XV. 

EXTREME UNCTION. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Extreme Unction is the Sacrament which, 
through the anointing and prayer of the priest, 
gives health and strength to the soul, and some- 
times to the body, when we are in danger of 
death from sickness. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Extreme Unction is not a Sacrament of the 
Gospel, it having grown partly of the corrupt fol- 
lowing of the Apostles. — Art. XXV. 

TESTIMONY. 

James v. 14, 15 — "Is any man sick among 

you? Let him bring in the priests of the 

church, and let them pray over him, anointing 

him with oil, in the name of the Lord : — And the 

prayer of faith shall save the sick man : and the 

162 



EXTREME UNCTION. 163 

Lord shall raise him up : and if he be in sins, 
they shall be forgiven him.'* 

" Let him bring in," etc. See here a plain war- 
rant of Scripture for the Sacrament of Extreme 
Unction, so that any controversy against its in- 
stitution would be against the express words of 
the sacred text in the plainest terms. 

To learn whom is meant by " priests," let us 
turn to St. Paul's First Epistle to Timothy iv. 
14 — " Neglect not the grace which is in thee, 
which was given thee by prophecy, with the im- 
position of the hands of the priesthood." 

Mark vi. 13 — And they cast out many devils, 
and anointed with oil many that were sick, and 
healed them." 

Counsel. — On points not the subjects of 
much dispute we will dwell but briefly, just long 
enough to show that no single article of Catholic 
faith is contrary to the written Word of God, 
but rather existing in the Church since the time 
of Christ. The testimony of St. James regarding 
the Sacrament of Extreme Unction is so clear as 
to need no confirmation. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HOLY ORDERS. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Holy Orders is a Sacrament which gives grace 
and power to perform the public functions con- 
nected with the worship of God and the salvation 
of souls. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Holy Orders is not a Sacrament of the Gospel, 
it having grown partly of the corrupt following 
of the Apostles.— Art. XXV. 

TESTIMONY. 

Who are to be priests, Hebrews v. 1, 2, 4, — " For 
every high-priest taken from among men is ap- 
pointed for men in the things that appertain to 
God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for 
sins. — Who can have compassion on them who are 

ignorant, and err : because he himself also is 

164 



HOLY ORDERS. 165 

encompassed with inflrmity : — Neither doth any 
man take the honor to himself, but he that is 
called by God, as Aaron was." 

St. Matt, xxviii. 18, 19, 20 — " And Jesus coming, 
spoke to them, saying : All power is given to me 
in heaven and in earth, — ^go ye, therefore, and 
teach all nations ; baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; 
— Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever 
I have commanded you ; and, behold, 1 am with 
you all days, even to the consummation of the 
world." 

" All power," etc. See here the warrant and 
commission of the Apostles and their successors, 
the bishops and pastors of Christ's Church. He 
received from his Father all power in heaven and 
in earth ; and in virtue of this power ^ he sends them 
(even as his Father sent him^ St. John xx. 21) to 
teach not one, but all nations ; and instruct them 
in all truths : and that he may assist them effectu- 
ally in the execution of this commission, he 
promises to be with them (not for three or four 
hundred years only, but all days^ even to the 
consummation of the world. How then could 



166 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the Catholic Church ever go astray ; having 
always with her pastors, as is promised, Christ 
himself, who is the way^ the truths and the life ? 
St. John xiv. 

Conferred by imposition of hands, Acts vi. 6 — 
** These they placed in the presence of the Apos- 
tles : and they praying imposed hands upon them." 
Acts xiii. 3 — " Then they fasting and praying, and 
imposing their hands upon them, sent them away." 
Acts xiv. 22 — "And when they had ordained 
for them priests in every church, and had prayed 
with fasting, they commended them to the Lord, 
in whom they believed." 

Instituted by Christ, St. Luke xxii. 19 — (See 
same passage, Chap. VIII.) ; St John xx. 22, 23 
— (See same passage. Chap. XIII.) 

Gives grace, 1 Timothy iv. 14 — "Neglect not 
the grace which is in thee, which was given thee 
by prophecy, with the imposition of the hands of 
the priesthood." 2 Timothy i. 6 — " For which 
cause I admonish thee, that thou stir up the grace 
of God, which is in thee by the imposition of 
hands." 

Our high-priest Jesus Christ, and the high- 



HOLY ORDERS. 167 

priests of the law, Hebrews viii. — " Now of the 
things spoken, the sum is: We have such a 
high-priest, who is set on the right hand of the 
throne of majesty in the heavens," Hebrews vii. 
23, 27 — " And the others, indeed, were made many 
priests, because, by reason of death, they were 
not suffered to continue : — Who (Jesus) needeth 
not daily, as other priests, to offer up sacrifices 
first for his own sins, and then for the people's : 
for this He did once, by offering up Himself." 

Bishops, Acts xx. 28 — " Take heed to your- 
selves, and to all the flock, over which the Holy 
Ghost hath placed you bishops, to rule the 
church of God, which he hath purchased with his 
own blood." 

Romans x. 15 — "And how can they preach 
unless they be sent ? as it is written : How beau- 
tiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel 
of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good 
things ! " 

"Unless they be sent." Here is an evident 
proof against all new teachers, who have all 
usurped to themselves the ministry without any 
lawful mission, derived by succession from the 



168 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

Apostles, to whom Christ said, John xx. 21 : As 
my Father hath sent me^ I also send you. 

Woman, must not preach nor teach, 1 Cor. xiv. 
34, 35 — " Let women keep silence in the churches : 
for it is not permitted to them to speak, but to 
be subject, as also the law saith. — But if they 
would learn anything, let them ask their hus- 
bands at home For it is a shame for a woman 
to speak in the church." 1 Tim. ii. 11, 12 — " Let 
the woman learn in silence, with all subjection. 
But I permit not a woman to teach, nor to use 
authority over the man : but to be in silence." 

Counsel. — " Sacrifice and priesthood are, by the 
ordinance of God, in such wise conjoined, as 
that both have existed in every age. Whereas, 
therefore, in the New Testament, the Catholic 
Church has received, from the institution of 
Christ, the holy, visible sacrifice of the Eucharist, 
it must needs also be confessed, that there is, in 
that Church, a new, visible, and external priest- 

NoTE. — ** The minister of this Sacrament is a bishop. 
Only the Apostles and the bishops, their successors, are 
recorded in the inspired books of the New Law as con 
f erring this Sacrament." 



HOLY ORDERS. 169 

hood, into which the old has been translated. And 
the Sacred Scriptures show, and the tradition of 
the Catholic Church has always taught, that this 
priesthood was instituted by the same Lord, our 
Saviour, and that to the Apostles, and their suc- 
cessors in the priesthood, was the power delivered 
of consecrating, offering, and administering His 
Body and Blood, as also of forgiving and of re- 
taining sins." 

It is strange, in the light of experience, how 
lax in methods we regard the government of the 
Spiritual kingdom. We seem to think, also, that 
the family, society, and the state, are but arti- 
ficial institutions, and not natural organizations 
imperatively demanded by the Divine conception 
of the universe. The natural order, the Divine 
order, requires that we have the family, society, 
and the state, as well as the Church, human laws 
simply fixing the methods by which the powers 
peculiar to each shall be administered. Now if 
the civil state, especially our own, finds it necessary 
for the highest welfare of its citizens to prescribe 
certain methods of administering the powers of 
which it is inherently possessed, how much more 



170 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL 

is it necessary for the Church, of God's kingdom on 
earth, to have a system of administration. The 
state must have a head ; so must the Church. 
The head of the state is bound by the constitu- 
tions of the people ; the head of the Church is 
bound by the constitutions of Jesus Clirist. The 
wishes, decrees and policies of both governments, 
of the state and of the Church, should be adminis- 
tered only by duly authorized representatives. 
To illustrate the last-mentioned principle : The 
seat of our civil government is located at Wash- 
ington. From there ministers of the state are 
sent to every capital on the globe. Do we per- 
mit every Tom, Dick and Harry, who perchance 
presents an ambassadorial appearance, to depart 
with a portfolio? We do not; our foreign 
representatives must be appointed, sworn, instruc- 
ted, and provided with proper state papers, before 
they can speak for us on foreign missions. Con- 
sidering that these are wise provisions in our 
civil government, and that the government of 
God's kingdom is the perfection of wisdom, why 
do we believe that any individual with a frock 
coat, Roman collar, pious countenance, and of 



HOLY ORDERS. 171 

good repute, is competent and qualified to repre- 
sent the Church of Christ, whose government 
was placed in the hands of Peter and his suc- 
cessors ? If the ministers of the state must be 
ordained, why not the ministers of the Church ? 
The Holy Scriptures unquestionably show that 
those who are to preach the word of God, to ab- 
solve sinners, to baptize the nations, and to offer 
the sacrifice of the Mass, are a separate class of 
men, to whom the care of religion in general is 
especially confided, and that they receive certain 
graces for these purposes by the imposition of 
hands, that is, in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. 
So important did the Council of Trent consider 
this sacrament that it tells us that : " As the min- 
istry of so exalted a priesthood is a divine thing^ 
it was meet, in order to surround it with the 
greater dignity and veneration that in the ad- 
mirable economy of the Church there should be 
several distinct orders of ministers, intended by 
their office to serve the priesthood, and so disposed, 
as that, beginning with the clerical tonsure, they 
may ascend through the lesser to the greater 
orders." 



172 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

The first of these orders is the clerical tonsure, 
symbolical of the crown of thorns worn by the 
Saviour, whom the young man so marked is so 
soon to represent. The order of Porter follows 
that of tonsure, and in the early ages consisted 
in taking care of the keys of the church, and see- 
ing that none but those who were worthy dared 
to enter therein. In receiving this order the 
young man is told by the bishop to, " Conduct 
yourself as having to render an account to God 
for those things which are kept under the keys." 
The second amongst the minor orders is that of 
Reader, and when the Porter is about to receive 
it the bishop in the presence of the assembled 
people says to him: "Receive (this book) and 
be you a rehearser of the word of God, destined, 
if you approve yourself faithful and useful in the 
discharge of your office, to have a part with those 
whOj from the beginning, have acquitted them- 
selves well in the ministry of the divine word. 
The third order is that of Exorcist : To him is 
given power to invoke the name of the Lord over 
persons possessed by unclean spirits. In initiat- 
ing him the bishop says : " Take this and com- 



HOLY ORDERS. 173 

mit it to memory, and have power to impose 
hands on persons possessed, be they baptized or 
catechumens. 

The fourth and last of the minor orders is that 
of Acolyte, whose duty is to attend those in holy 
orders. In his hand a lighted candle is put, and 
the bishop addresses to him these words : " Re- 
ceive this wax light, and know that hencefor- 
ward you are devoted to the light of the Church, 
in the name of the Lord." He then hands him 
empty cruets, intended to supply wine and water 
for the sacrifice, saying : " Receive these cruets, 
which are to supply wine and water for the 
Eucharist of the blood of Christ, in the name of 
the Lord. 

In time, if the young man proves by the holi- 
ness of his life that he is a fit subject for the 
priesthood of Christ, he is allowed to take his first 
step in holy orders properly so-called. After be- 
ing admonished in the most solemn manner by 
the bishop concerning the importance of the step 
he is about to take, he touches the chalice. Paten, 
cruets, and other articles used for the most 
august sacrifice, and the bishop then addresses to 



174 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

him these words : " See what sort of ministry is 
confided to you : I admonish you therefore, so to 
comport yourself as to be pleasing in the sight of 
the Almighty God." After a time of probation he 
is raised to the second step in holy orders, namely 
Deacon. Being admonished of the importance of 
the duties that he is about to assume, the bishop 
hands him a copy of the Gospels with these 
words : " Receive power to read the Gospel in 
the Church of God, as well for the living as for 
the dead, in the name of the Lord." 

Any one who has ever seen this dignity con- 
ferred on the young deacon by the hands of the 
successor of the Apostles is never likely to forget 
the awful solemnity with which the rite is vested, 
and is firmly convinced that he upon whom the 
honor is conferred becomes truly a priest of God 
according to the order of Melchisedech, when the 
consecrating bishop says to him : " Receive power 
to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Mass as 
well for the living as for the dead." But hardly 
has he received that power when he receives an- 
other which has been granted to him, not by the 
powers of this earth but by Christ himself, when 



HOLY ORDERS. 175 

he in the person of the bishop says : " Receive ye 
the Holy Ghost: whose sins you shall forgive, 
they are forgiven them : and whose sins you shall 
retain, they are retained ' 

When we think of the solemnity with which 
the Church has always invested this sacrament, 
and the care that she exercises lest any one who 
might prove unworthy might enter the sacred 
portals of her sanctuary, there to offer the living 
sacrifice of the living and true God, we cannot 
doubt the reality of the sacrament which she 
confers. Again, when we think that Christ him- 
self has bestowed all the powers that the Church 
grants to the young priest and the necessity for 
the exercise of those powers if the life and the 
sacrifice of the son of God are to avail those for 
whom he suffered, we must not only admit the 
validity of the sacrament of Holy Orders as it 
exists in the Church of Christ to-day, but we 
must in solemn adoration kneel and from a grate- 
ful heart pour forth acts of love, praise and thanks- 
giving to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the 
great High Priest of the Catholic and Apostolic 
Church. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

MATRIMONY. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Sacrament of Matrimony is the Sacrament 
which unites a Christian man and woman in law- 
ful marriage, and which bond cannot be dissolved 
by any human power. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Sacrament of Matrimony is not a Sacra- 
ment of the Gospel, it having grown partly of the 
corrupt following of the Apostles. — Art. XXV. 

TESTIMONY. 

A Sacrament representing the indissoluble 
union of Christ and the Church, Ephesians v. 32 — 
" This is a great sacrament ; but I speak in Christ 
and in the church." 

Marriage not to be dissolved but by death, 

Genesis ii. 24 — " Wherefore a man shall leave 

176 



MATRIMONY. 177 

father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife ; 
and they shall be two in one flesh." St. Matthew 
xix. 6 — " Wherefore they are no more two but 
one flesh. What therefore God hath joined to- 
gether, let not man put asunder." St. Mark x. 
11, 12 — "And he said to them: Whosoever shall 
put away his wife, and marry another, committeth 
adultery against her." St. Luke xvi. 18 — " Every 
one that putteth away his wife, and marrieth 
another, committeth adultery ; and he that mar- 
rieth her that is put away from her husband, 
committeth adultery." Romans vii. 2, 3 — " For 
the woman that hath a husband, whilst her hus- 
band liveth, is bound to the law : but if her hus- 
band be dead, she is loosed from the law of her 
husband. — Wherefore, whilst her husband liveth, 
she shall be called an adulteress if she be with 
another man : but if her husband be dead, she is 
free from the law of her husband : so that she is 
not an adulteress if she be with another man." 1 
Cor. vii. 10, 11, 39 — " But to them that are married, 
not I, but the Lord commandeth, that the wife 
depart not from her husband. — And if she de- 
part, that she remain unmarried, or be reconciled 



178 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

to her husband. And let not the husband put 
away his wife. — A woman is bound by the law as 
long as her husband liveth : but if her husband 
die, she is at liberty : let her marry to whom she 
will ; only in the Lord." 

St. Augustin. — " In all nations and amongst all 
mankind indiscriminately, the good of marriage 
consists in propagating the human race, and pro- 
moting chastity ; but among the people of God 
there is an additional consideration, the holiness 
of the sacrament^ which renders it unlawful, even 
in case of a divorce, for either part to marry dur- 
ing the lifetime of the other." — Tom. 6, c. 24. 

Counsel. — To every truly devoted husband or 
wife the idea of divorce is repugnant, sinful, and 
unnatural. The foundation-stones of a happy 
family life are love and fidelity, and these quali- 
ties are in nowise promoted by the law of divorce. 
The best that can be said for divorce is that it 
provides an avenue of escape for those who be- 
come dissatisfied with the obligations of their 
marriage contracts. Without respect for public 
morals ; without respect for innocent offspring ; 
without respect, we may say, for the Christian 



MATRIMONY. I79 

Religion, the law grants a special privilege to the 
unfaithful, the dissatisfied, the hard of heart, by 
allowing him or her to have a bill of divorce. Dis- 
ciples of the Protestant religion may object to 
this broad statement of the case by saying that 
only on the ground of adultery is divorce lawful. 
The exception which our Lord makes in the case of 
adultery (Matt. v. 32) does not refer to a sever- 
ance of the bond of matrimony, but only to a 
separation from bed and board ; for in the same 
place he declares that he who marries a divorced 
woman — though she may have been divorced for 
adultery — commits adultery, which could not be 
if the bond of marriage were entirely loosed in the 
case of adultery. It is entirely proper, and ad- 
visable, in certain cases, for husband and wife, for 
a time at least, to live apart. But if they separate 
for any reason, they must remain unmarried or be- 
come reconciled. (1 Cor. vii. 11.) Mne-tenths of 
the divorces are granted in cases in which, if a 
little diplomacy had been used, reconciliations 
could have been effected. Who will gainsay, 
then, that diplomacy, or rather reasonable con- 
sideration, and not divorce, is in such cases the 



180 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

proper expedient. If God has appointed a better 
way, can it be said that an infelicitous couple are 
warranted in obtaining a divorce in order to 
satisfy their want of mutual forbearance ? Must 
the Divine law be repealed in order that the hard 
of heart shall not be humiliated ? Another reason 
given for divorce is, that after the consummation 
of the marriage contract one of the parties may 
discover that he or she loves another person 
better. This idea is also repugnant to the honor- 
able sense ; for when two persons have set their 
affections on each other, — and otherwise they 
should not marry, — it is absolutely impossible for 
either of them to shift those affections without the 
concurrence of the wall, and if the troth has been 
pledged, such a shifting constitutes a grievous sin, 
for which hell's fire, and not divorce, is the proper 
palliative. 

Christ, speaking of the N^ew Law, says without 
restriction : " Every one that putteth away his 
wife and marrieth another committeth adultery." 
(Luke xvi. 18.) Again the Pharisees asked him : 
" Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for 
every cause ? Who answering, said to them : Have 



MATRIMONY. 181 

ye not read, that he who made man from the be- 
ginning, made them male and female? And he 
said : For this cause shall a man leave father and 
mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two 
shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are 
not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath 
joined together, let no man put asunder. They 
say to him. Why then did Moses command to 
give a bill of divorce, and to put away ? He saith 
to them : Because Moses by reason of the hard- 
ness of your heart permitted you to put away 
your wives : hut from the beginning it was not so.^^ 
Moses on the ground of adultery permitted di- 
vorce ; but, says our Lord, " from the beginning 
it was not so." It was because of the wickedness 
and hardness of men's hearts that divorce was 
granted under the Mosaic law. Christ came to 
purify men's hearts and to establish a higher 
order of morality. " Therefore," says He, " now 
they are not two, but one flesh. What God hath 
joined together, let no man put asunder." If we 
contend that divorce is now necessary, we there- 
by declare that Christ has failed in establishing 
a higher order of morality and that mankind has 



182 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

sunk again into the state of lust and iniquity 
which Moses was unable to reform. 

Protestants denied the sacramental character 
of matrimony. But unjustly, since Christ gave 
it all the marks of a sacrament. He made it an 
outward sign of inward grace ; in the first place 
by making it a representation of His own union 
with the Church. St. Paul says : " The husband 
is the head of the wife, as Christ is the head of 
the Church .... Therefore, as the Church is 
subject to Christ, so also let the wives be to their 
husbands in all things. Husbands, love your 
wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and de- 
livered himself up for it. (Eph. v. 22-29.) Now 
matrimony could not represent the union of 
Christ with the Church, and on this very ground 
impose special obligations on man and wife, un- 
less it also conferred grace upon them to fulfill 
these obligations. Since, therefore, Christ not 
only restored marriage to its original perfection, 
but also made it a figure of His union with the 
Church, it is, like the other sacraments, a sign in- 
stituted by God, and productive of grace. There- 
fore St. Paul calls it a great sacrament or mys- 



MATRIMONY. 183 

tery, " in Christ and in the Church." — (Eph. v. 
32). 

One more objection may be raised against the 
indissolubility of the marriage contract, by those 
who disregard its sacramental character, to wit, 
that being a contract between two persons when 
it is violated by one it should not be binding 
upon the other. Let us see if this principle is 
sound, even in legal ethics. The American 
colonies by a voluntary compact entered into a 
union of states. They became, as man and wife 
in marriage, one and inseparable. Almost a cen- 
tury later certain of these states, declaring that 
the rest were cohabiting with strange institutions, 
viz., the freedom of the negro and the subjection 
of state rights, sought to have the original con- 
tract annulled ; the South, as it were, sought to 
obtain a divorce from the North. We all know 
the result : a million lives were sacrificed in the 
vindication of the principle that the union of 
states is indissoluble. The stability of govern- 
ments requires that this principle be maintained 
at all cost, even though dissolution in some in- 
stances might bring happier results. The family 



184 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

is the most perfect of all governments ; and it is 
the union of families, not of individuals, which 
makes the state. Corrupt the family life, and the 
state shall decline ; corrupt the state, and if the 
family life be pure, the corruption cannot last. 
Therefore, aside from religious considerations, the 
same principles which are invoked to preserve 
the national unity and stability should with 
stricter application be enforced to preserve the 
unity and sanctity of the home. 

Need we carry the controversy farther. He is 
blind indeed to passing events who does not 
realize the awful length to which the divorce evil 
has gone. One state in the union has a record of 
5,000 divorces for a single year ; and the general 
rate is constantly increasing. In dismay, in 
alarm, and in a sense of helplessness, the Prot- 
estant ministers of the land are appealing for 
legislative reform. They are either ignorant or 
oblivious of the truth that only the grace of God 
can meet the emergency. Christ alone, of all 
lawgivers, has been able to restore marriage to 
its original indissolubility. He will not come 
again for that purpose ; but He has left all power 



MATRIMONY. 185 

to His Church, which has never permitted, and 
never will permit, a man or wife to marry a sec- 
ond time while his or her first spouse is living. 
That the restriction, if it may be called such, does 
not work a hardship is amply evidenced by the 
fact that among 300,000,000 Roman Catholics, 
who are bound by it, there is no serious dissatis- 
faction. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

MOTHER OF GOD. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Blessed and Spotless Virgin Mary occu- 
pies the highest place in Heaven next to God 
Himself. She stands as the Queen of Intercessors 
between man and his Creator. To her is paid the 
greatest honor that can be -offered to a saint of God. 

PROTESTAXT CREED. 

The invocation of the Blessed Virgin is a fond 
thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no 
warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to 
the word of God.— Art. XXII. (Many Prot- 
estants, also, regard the Mother of Christ as a 
woman entitled to no special prominence.) 

TESTIMONY. 

Her mgnity, St. Luke i. 28, 42, 43— "And the 

angel being come in, said to her : Hail, full of 

186 



MOTHER OF GOD. 187 

grace, the Lord is with thee : blessed art thou 
among women. — And she (Elizabeth) cried out 
with a loud voice, and said: Blessed art thou 
among women ; and blessed is the fruit of thy 
womb. — And whence is this to me, that the 
mother of my Lord should come to me ? " 

All generations of true Christians shall call her 
blessed, St. Luke i. 48. — "Because he hath re- 
garded the humility of his handmaid : for, behold, 
from henceforth all generations shall call me 
blessed." 

" Shall call me blessed." These words are a 
prediction of that honor which the Church in all 
ages should pay to the Blessed Virgin. Let Prot- 
estants examine whether they are any way con- 
cerned in this prophecy. 

Her divine macernity, St. Matthew i. 19, 20. — 
"Whereupon Joseph her husband, being a just 
man, and not willing publicly to expose her, was 
minded to put her away privately. — But while he 
thought on these things, behold, the Angel of the 
Lord appeared to him in his sleep, saying : Joseph, 
son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy 
wife : for that which is conceived in her, is of 



188 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the Holy Ghost." St. Luke i. 30, 31.— « And the 
angel said to her : Fear not, Mary ; For thou hast 
found grace with God : — Behold, thou shalt con- 
ceive in thy womb, and shalt bring forth a son ; 
and thou shalt call his name Jesus." 

As an intercessor, John ii. 3, 4. — "And the 
wine failing, the mother of Jesus saith to him : 
They have no wine. And Jesus saith to her: 
Woman, what is it to me and to thee ? my hour 
is not yet come." 

"My hour," etc. Though the hour had not yet 
come for Our Lord to enter upon His public mis- 
sion, which was to end on Calvary, and which 
was so dreadful for His human nature to contem- 
plate, because of the sufferings and ignominies to 
be endured, yet at Mary's suggestion He consents 
to perform His first miracle, and the water was 
made wine. 

Chrysostom. — " The Lord did not choose a rich 
or distinguished woman to be his mother; but 
that blessed Virgin whose soul was adorned with 
all the virtues. For as the blessed Mary pre- 
served chastity above all human nature, because 
of this did she conceive the Lord in her womb. 



MOTHER OF GOD. 189 

To this most holy Virgin and Mother of God, 
having recourse, we will experience the utility of 
her intercession. Thus also let those particularly 
who are virgins, fly to her. 

She will preserve for you the most beautiful, 
the most precious, the most uncorruptible posses- 
sion of virginity." 

And again : " A great miracle truly, my be- 
loved brethren, was the ever-blessed Virgin. For 
who has been, or ever will be, greater or more 
illustrious ? She alone fills the heavens and the 
earth with her amplitude. For who more holy ? 
Not the prophets, not the Apostles, not the mar- 
tyrs, not the patriarchs, not the angels, not the 
Thrones, not the Dominations, not the Seraphim, 
not the Cherubim ; not, in fine, anything amongst 
created things, visible or invisible, greater or more 
excellent can be found. 

" This is she the handmaid of God and the one 
who bore Him, at the same time virgin and 

mother Hail, therefore, mother, maiden, 

virgin, throne, ornament of the Church, its glory 
and its firmament, pray for us assiduously to thy 
Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; that through thee 



190 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

we may find mercy in the day of judgment, and 
by thy grace and goodness come into possession 
of those things which the Lord has preserved for 
those who love Him." — Office of the Blessed Vir- 
gin, Roman breviary. 

Athanasius. — "Here now, oh daughter of 
David ; incline thine ear to our prayers. — We raise 
our cry to thee. Remember us, oh ! most Holy 
Virgin, and for the feeble eulogiums we give thee, 
grant us great gifts from the treasures of thy 
graces, thou, who art full of grace. — Hail, Mary, 
full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Queen and 
Mother of God, intercede for us." — Serm. in 
Annunt. 

Ephrem of Edessa. — " We fly to thy patronage, 
Holy Mother of God; protect and guard us^ 
under the wings of thy mercy and kindness. — 
Most merciful God, through the intercession of 
the Most Blessed Virgin Mary, and of all the 
Angels, and of all the Saints, show pity to thy 
creature." — Serm. de. Laud. B. Mar. Virg. 

Epiphanius.— " Her body was, I own, holy, but 
she was no God. She continued a virgin, but 
she is Dot proposed for our adoration ; — she her- 



MOTHER OF GOD. 191 

self adoring Him who, having descended from 
heaven and the bosom of his Father, was born of 
her flesh. . . . Though, therefore, she was a 
chosen vessel, and endowed with eminent sanc- 
tity, still she is woman, partaking of our com- 
mon nature, but deserving of the highest honors 
shown to the saints of God. — She stands before 
them all on account of the heavenly mystery ac- 
complished in her. But we adore no saint : and 
as this worship is not given to angels, much less 
can it be allowed to the daughter of Ann. — Let 
Marj% therefore, be honored; but the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost alone be adored ; let no one 
adore Mary." — Adv. Collyridianos Haer. 59. 

Counsel. — "The doctrine of the Immaculate 
Conception has been that of the Church from 
the earliest times — was so well known and gen- 
erally diffused, that Mahomet took it, with other 
Christian truths, in forming his new religion ; so 
irrefragable, that Luther even, after abandoning 
the one sheepfold of the Shepherd, strenuously 
maintained it. It was implied in decisions of 
many sovereign pontiffs, and in the decree of the 
Council of Trent (1545-63) on Original Sin. It 



192 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

was woven into the very heart of the Catholic 
world by devotions and festivals." Pope Pius IX 
declared it formally 1854. It is simply the belief 
that the Blessed Virgin Mary was always ex- 
empted from the guilt of original sin; though 
she was conceived and born of human parents, 
Joachim and Anna. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

SAINTS. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Communion of Saints means the union 
which exists between the members of the Church 
on earth with one another, and witli the blessed 
in Heaven and with the suffering souls in Purga- 
tory. The faithful on earth assist one another by 
their prayers and good works, and they are aided 
by the intercession of the saints in Heaven, while 
both the saints in Heaven and the faithful on 
earth help the souls in Purgatory. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Invocation of Saints is a fond thing, vain- 
ly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of 
Scriptures, but rather repugnant to the Word of 
God.— Art. XXII. 

TESTIMONY. 

Departed, assist us by their prayers, St. Luke 

xvi. 9 — " And I say to you : Make to yourselves 

193 



194 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

friends of the mammon of iniquity ; that when 
you shall fail, they may receive you into ever- 
lasting dwellings." 

"May receive." By this we see that the poor 
servants of God, whom we have relieved by our 
alms, may hereafter, by their intercession, bring 
our souls to heaven. 

We have communion with them, Hebrews xii. 
22, 23 — " But you are come to Mount Sion, and to 
the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusa- 
lem, and to the company of many thousands of 
angels. — And to the church of the first-born, who 
are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of 
all, and to the spirits of the just made perfect." 

They shall have power over nations. Apoc- 
alypse ii. 26, 27 — "And he that shall overcome, 
and keep my works unto the end, to him I will 
give power over nations ; — And he shall rule them 
with a rod of iron ; and as the vessel of a potter 
they shall be broken." 

" Power over nations." This shows, that the 
saints, who are with Christ our Lord in heaven, 
receive power from him to preside over nations 
and provinces, as patrons ; and shall come with 



SAINTS. 195 

him at the end of the world, to execute his will 
against those who have not kept his command- 
ments. 

They know what passes between us, St. Luke 
XV. 10 — "So, I say to you, there shall be joy be- 
fore the angels of God upon one sinner doing 
penance." 

" Before the angels." By this it is plain that 
the spirits in heaven have a concern for us below, 
and a joy at our repentance, and consequently a 
knowledge of it. 

1 Corinthians xiii. 12 — "We see now through a 
glass in a dark manner ; but then face to face. 
Now I know in part : but then I shall know even 
as I am known." 

1 John iii. 2 — " Dearly beloved, we are now the 
sons of God : and it hath not yet appeared what 
we shall be. We know, that when he shall ap- 
pear, we shall be like to him : because we shall 
see him as he is." 

They are with Christ in heaven, before the 
general resurrection, 2 Cor. v. 1, 6, 7, 8 — " For we 
know that if our earthly house of this habitation 
be dissolved, that we have a building of God, a 



196 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

house not made with hands, eternal in heaven. — 
Therefore, having always confidence, knowing 
that, while we are in the body, we are absent 
from the Lord : — (For we walk by faith and not 
by sight.) — We are confident, I say, and have a 
good will to be absent rather from the body, and 
to be present with the Lord." 

Philippians i. 23, 24 — " But I am straitened 
between two : having a desire to be dissolved, 
and to be with Christ, being by much the better : 
But to remain in the flesh is necessary for you." 

Apocalypse iv. 4 — " And round about the throne 
were four and twenty seats : and upon the seats, 
four and twenty ancients sitting, clothed in 
white garments, and golden crowns on their 
heads : " vi. 9 — " And when he had opened the 
fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them 
that were slain for the word of God, and for the 
testimony which they held." 

"Under the altar." Christ, as man, is this 
altar, under which the souls of the martyrs live 
in heaven: as their bodies are here deposited 
under our altars. 

Apocalypse vii. 9, 14, 15 — "After this I saw a 



SAINTS. 197 

great multitude, which no man could number, of 
all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, 
standing before the throne, and in sight of the 
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in 
their hands : — And I said to him : My Lord, thou 
knowest. And he said to me: These are they 
who are come out of great tribulation, and have 
washed their robes, and have made them white 
in the blood of the Lamb. — Therefore, they are 
before the throne of God, and serve him day and 
night in his temple : and he, that sitteth on the 
throne, shall dwell over them : " xiv. 1, 4 — " And 
I saw : and behold, a Lamb stood on Mount Sion, 
and with him a hundred forty-four thousand 
having his name and the name of his Father 
written in their foreheads. These are they who 
were not defiled with women : for they are vir- 
gins. These follow the Lamb whithersoever he 
goeth. These were purchased from among men, 
the first-fruits to God, and to the Lamb : " xix. 1, 
5 — " After these things I heard as it were the 
voice of many multitudes in heaven, saying : Alle- 
luia : salvation, and glory, and power is to our 
God : — And a voice came out from the throne, 



198 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

saying : Praise ye our God all his servants, and 
you that fear him, little and great." 

For their invocation, Romans xv. 30 — " 1 be- 
seech you, therefore, brethren, through our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and by the charity of the Holy 
Ghost, that you assist me in your prayers for me 
to God." Ephesians vi. 18, 19 — "By all prayer 
and supplication praying at all times in the 
Spirit ; and in the same watching with all in- 
stance and supplication for all the saints : And for 
me, that speech may be given me, that I may 
open my mouth with confidence, to make known 
the mystery of the gospel." 1 Thess. v. 25 — 
"Brethren, pray for us." Hebrews xiii. 18 — 
" Pray for us : for we trust that we have a good 
conscience, being willing to behave ourselves well 
in all things." 

Origen. — " We may be allowed to say of all the 
holy men who have quitted this life, retaining 
their charity towards those whom they left be- 
hind, that they are anxious for their salvation, and 
that they assist them by their prayers and their 
meditation with God. For it is written in the 
book of Machabees, ' This is Jeremiah, the prophet 



SAINTS. 199 

of God, who always prays for the people.' — Lib. 
8. in Cant. Can tic. Again: — *I will fall down 
on my knees, and, not presuming, on account of 
my crimes, to present my prayer to God, I will 
invoke all the saints to my assistance. O ye 
saints of Heaven, I beseech you with a sorrow full 
of sighs and tears, fall at the feet of the Lord of 
Mercies for me, a miserable sinner.' " — Lib. 2, de 
Job. 

Cyprian. — " Let us be mindful of one another 
in our prayers ; . . . And may the charity of him 
who, by divine favor, shall first depart hence, 
still persevere before the Lord ; may his prayer, 
for our brethren and sisters, be unceasing." — ^De 
Habitu Virg. 

St. Hilary. — " According to Raphael, speaking 
to Tobias, there are angels who serve before the 
face of God, and who convey to him the prayers of 
the suppliant. It is not the character of the Deity 
that stands in need of this intercession, but our 
infirmity does. — God is not ignorant of anything 
that we do ; but the weakness of man, to suppli- 
cate and obtain, calls for the ministry of the 
spiritual intercession." — In Psalm 129. 



200 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

St. Basil. — (In celebrating the Feast of the 
Forty Martyrs.) "O ye common guardians of 
the human race, co-operators in our prayers, most 
powerful messengers, stars of the world and 
flowers of churches, let us join our prayers with 
yours." — Hom. 19. 

Counsel. — Protestant objection to the doctrine 
of the Communion of Saints, as taught by the 
Catholic Church, is based on the erroneous belief 
that there are no ministering spirits between God 
and man, that God deals directly with each one 
of us, and that it is a reflection on His infinite 
love to hold that an intercessor is ever necessary 
for us, Christ's death on the cross was an in- 
tercessory act whereby He satisfied the justice 
of God for the sins of the world and purchased 
our redemption. And the Scriptures teem with 
evidences that the good angels assist us, pray for 
us, protect us, and exhort us to do good : " Are 
they (the angels) not all ministering spirits, sent 
to minister for them who shall receive the in- 
heritance of salvation ? (Heb. i. 14.) " When 
thou didst pray with tears and didst bury the 
dead, .... I (the angel Raphael) offered thy 



SAINTS. 201 

prayers to the Lord." (Tob. xii. 12.) And ac- 
cording to the Apocalypse (viii. 3, 4), an angel 
bears the incense of the prayers of the saints be- 
fore the throne of God. An angel admonished 
Cornelius the centurion to send for Peter that he 
might instruct him in the faith (Acts x.) ; an 
angel exhorted the Apostles to the faithful dis- 
charge of their oflSce (Acts v. 20). "He hath 
given His angels charge over thee to protect thee 
in all thy ways. In their hands they shall bear 
thee up, lest perchance thou dash thy foot against 
a stone." (Ps. xc. 10-12.) It was an angel who 
saved Lot from the destruction of Sodom (Gen. 
xix.) ; an angel rescued young Tobias from mani- 
fold dangers. The ministry of the angels, as 
thus proven, amply refutes the contrary doctrine 
that there is no intercessory medium between God 
and His subjects. Realizing this it is easy to 
comprehend that the saints of God, being now 
pure spirits with the angels in heaven, and being 
still anxious for the salvation of mankind, like 
the angel Raphael do " offer our prayers to the 
Lord." 
That which is natural is by that fact reasonable. 



202 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

And natural law, be it remembered, is in accord 
with Divine law. Let us compare our conduct 
then in seeking temporal favors from our supe- 
riors with that in seeking spiritual favors from 
God. The President of the United States, except 
for his official character, differs not from the or- 
dinary citizen. There are perchance thousands 
of men in the country equally as good, virtuous, 
noble and dignified as he ; yet what course do we 
usually pursue when we are applying for Ex- 
ecutive favor ? Do we telegraph His Excellency 
to call and see us ? or with finer courtesy do we 
notify him that we will call upon him at a certain 
hour ? You smile at the questions, but why ? 
Undoubtedly the President, as President, has the 
same kind regard for each law-abiding citizen as 
he has for the individual members of his cabinet ; 
wherefore we should expect as much considera- 
tion from his hands in the way of political favor 
as may the biggest politician of his party. Never- 
theless, the natural thing for us to do in such a 
case is to propose our application through some 
more influential person. At such times we are 
invariably conscious ot our lack of importance ; 



SAINTS. 203 

we want the job, and we know our boasted equality 
doesn't go as well as a little outside influence. 
The ordinary Catholic is honest with himself in 
believing that there are persons more influential 
than he at the Throne of Heaven. He always 
prays to God^ beseeching ofttimes, however, the 
saints to assist him in his supplications. Again, 
why do the angels pray for us and minister for 
us if their ministrations are of no avail ? And if 
the angels can and do assist us in Heaven, as- 
suredly the saints of God, being now received 
into eternal glory, can and do pray for us with 
effect to Him to whom our Lord also prayed tor us. 



CHAPTER XX. 



FASTING. 



CATHOLIC CREED. 



The Church counsels her children to fast and 
abstain, to pray and do good, in order that they 
may mortify their evil passions and satisfy for 
their sins. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Voluntary works besides, over and above God's 
Commandments, which Catholics call works of 
supererogation, cannot be taught without arro- 
gancy and impiety. — Art. XIV. 

TESTIMONY. 

Is of great efficacy against the devil, St Mark 
ix. 28 — " And he said to them : This kind can go 
out by nothing, but by prayer and fasting." 

And is to be observed by all the children of 

Christ, St. Matthew ix. 15 — "And Jesus said to 

2Utt 



FASTING. 205 

them : Can the children of the bridegroom mourn 
as long as the bridegroom is with them ? JBut 
the days will come, when the bridegroom shall 
be taken away from them, and then they shall 
fast." 

St. Mark ii. 20 — " But the days will come when 
the bridegroom shall be taken away from them : 
and then they shall fast in those days." 

St. Luke V. 35 — " But the days will come, when 
the bridegroom shall be taken away from them ; 
then they shall fast in those days." 

Acts xiii. 3 — " Then they, fasting and praying, 
and imposing their hands upon them, sent them 
away." 

Acts xiv. 22 — " And when they had ordained 
for them priests in every church, and had prayed 
with fasting, they commended them to the Lord^ 
in whom they believed." 

2 Cor. vi. 5 — " In stripes, in prisons, in sedi- 
tions, in labors, in watchings, in fastings." 

2 Cor. xi. 27 — " In labor and painf ulness, in 
watchings, in hunger and thirst, in many fastings, 
in cold and nakedness." 

Christ's fast of forty days, St. Matthew iv. 2 — 



206 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

" And when he had fasted forty days and forty 
nights, he was afterwards hungry." 

Hernias. (One of those distinguished Chris- 
tians to whom St. Paul sends salutations in the 
Epistle to the Romans.) — " The first thing we have 
to do is to observe the Commandments of God. 
If afterwards a man wishes to add thereunto 
any good work, such as fasting, he will receive 
the greater recompense." — Precepts and Simili- 
tudes. 

Cyprian. — " Before him let the soul bow down : 
to him let our sorrow make satisfaction : . . . 
By fasting, by tears, and by moaning, let us ap- 
pease, as he himself admonishes, his indignation." 
— De Lapsis. " Purge away your sins by works 
of justice, and by alms-deeds which may save 
the soul."— lb. 

St. Augustin. — " It is not enough that the 
sinner change his ways, and depart from his evil 
works, unless by penitential sorrow, by humble 
tears, by the sacrifice of a contrite heart, and by 
alms-deeds, he may make satisfaction to God 
for what he has committed." — Homil. I. T. x. 

Ambrose. — " Let Christ see thee weeping, that 



FASTING. 207 

he may say, ' Blessed are they that mourn, for they 
shall be comforted '(Matt. v. 4). Therefore did he 
immediately pardon Peter, because he wept bitter- 
ly ; and if thou weep in like manner, Christ will 
look on thee, and thy sin will be canceled. . . . 
Let no consideration then withhold thee from 
doing penance. In this imitate the Saints, and let 
their tears be the measure of thy own." — De 
Poenit. c. 10. 

Counsel. — " According to the Apostolical Can- 
ons, which the learned Bishop Beveridge says 
were framed by the disciples of the Apostles 
about the end of the second century, the primitive 
Christians fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, 
and whatever had been saved by abstinence was 
always laid out in relieving the necessities of the 
poor." 

Note.—** Lent or the season of the forty days' fast in 
the Catholic Church is a practice of apostolic origin. 
It is held every year in memory of the Saviour's fast of 
forty days in the desert. It was confirmed in the year 
A. D. 142 by Pope St. Telesphorus, and has continued 
throughout Christendom down to the present time." — 
Festal Year, 



CHAPTER XXI. 

RELICS AND IMAGES. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

It is not allowed to pray to the crucifix or im- 
ages and relics of the saints, for they have no 
life, nor power to help us, nor sense to hear us. 
We pray before them because they enliven our 
devotion by exciting pious affections and desires, 
and by reminding us of Christ and of the saints 
that we may imitate their virtue. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Romish doctrine concerning Worshiping 
and Adoration of Images and Reliques, is a fond 
thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no 
warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to 
the Word of God.— Art. XII. 

TESTIMONY. 

Miraculous, 4 Kings xiii. 21 — " And some that 

were burying a man, saw the rovers, and cast the 

208 



RELICS AND IMAGES. 209 

body into the sepulchre of Eliseus. And when 
it had touched the bones of Eliseus, the man 
came to life, and stood upon his feet." 

St. Matthew ix. 20, 21 — " And behold, a woman, 
who was troubled with an issue of blood twelve 
years, came before him, and touched the hem of 
his garment. — For she said, within herself : If I 
shall but touch the hem of his garment, I shall 
be healed." 

Acts xix. 11, 12 — " And God wrought special 
miracles by the hand of Paul. — So that even 
there were brought from his body to the sick, 
handkerchiefs and aprons, and the diseases de- 
parted from them, and the wicked spirits went 
out of them." 

Note. — At Lyons the church of St. Irenaeus was built 
ever the tomb of St. Epipoy and St. Alexander, who 
were martyred under Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor 
222-235). It was at first subterraneous ; but in the fifth 
century St. Patiens erected the present church. Here 
were collected the bones of the martyrs under Severus 
(Emperor 193-211) in the year 202. In the year 1562, 
the Calvinists took Lyons, demolished the altars, and 
mixed the bones of beasts with those of the martyrs." — 
Ages of Faith. 



210 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

St. Gregory Nyssen. — " This holy altar at which 
we stand ... is dedicated and consecrated to 
the worship of God." — Ages of Faith. 

St. Basil. — " Whoever touches the bones of a 
martyr, on account of the eminent grace of the 
body, will become a partaker in the sanctification." 
— Serm. in Psalm 115. 

St. Chrysostom. — (Speaking of St. Ignatius.) 
" Not the bodies alone, but the very tombs of 
the saints are filled with spiritual grace." — Ages 
of Faith. 

St. Augustin. — (Replying to the pagans.) " We 
do not erect temples to the martyrs, but we 
honor their sepulchres as having rendered testi- 
mony to the truth." — De Civitate Dei. 

Counsel.—" St. Ignatius (A. D. 109) was de- 
livered up to be devoured by lions in the amphi- 
theatre at Rome. After the victim had been 
despatched, the faithful deacons who had accom- 
panied him on his journey, gathered up, as we are 
told, the few bones which the wild beasts had 
spared, and carrying them to Antioch, deposited 
them there religiously in a shrine, round which 
annually, on the day of his martyrdom, the 



RELICS AND IMAGES. 211 

Faithful assembled, and in memory of his self- 
devotion, kept vigil a round his relics ! " — Moore. 

Tertullian. — (In his account of the modes and 
customs of his fellow-Christians.) " We sign 
ourselves with the sign of the cross in the fore- 
head, whenever we go to the bath, or sit down to 
meat, when we light our candles, when we lie 
down and when we sit." (Crossing enough, God 
knows, to serve the most particular old Catholic 
lady in all Ireland for a week.) — Moore. 

Counsel. — "In the year 814, when Leo, the 
Armenian, assembled several bishops in order 
to induce them to break images, Euthymius, met- 
roplitan of Sardis, thus addressed him : — ' Know, 
sire, that for eight hundred years and more 
since Christ came into the world, he has been 
painted and adored in his image. Who will be 
bold enough to abolish so ancient a tradition ? ' " 
Moore. 

Hilary. — " The holy blood of the martyrs is 
everywhere received, and their venerable bones 
daily bear witness." — L. contra Constant. 

Ephrem. — "The grace of the Divine Spirit, 
which works miracles in them, ever resides in 



212 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the relics of the Saints." — In Encom. omnium 
Mart. 

Ambrose. — "I honor, therefore, in the body of 
the martyr, the wounds that he received in the 
name of Christ ; . . . I honor the body which 
has taught me to love the Lord, and not fear 
death for his sake." — Serm. 55. 

Chrysostom. — " Next to the power of speech, 
the monuments of the saints are best adapted^ 
when we look on them, to excite us to the 
imitation of their virtues. . . . For this 
reason, then, has God left us the remains of the 
saints! — Lib. contra Gent. "That which neither 
riches nor gold can effect, the relics of martyrs 
can. Gold never dispelled diseases nor warded 
off death ; but the bones of the martyrs have done 
both. In the days of our forefathers, the former 
happened ; the latter in our own." — Homil. 67, de 
St. Drosid. Mart. 

Nilus. — "In the chancel of the most sacred 
temple, towards the east let there be one and 
only one Cross. . . Let the sacred temple 
be filled with pictures well executed by the 
most celebrated artists, representing the most 



RELICS AND IMAGES. 213 

remarkable events of the Old and New Testa- 
ments ; that the unlettered and those who are 
incapable of reading the divine Scriptures may, 
by the sight of the pictures, be instructed in the 
virtuous deeds of those who have served the true 
God, according to his own will and command." 
—Lib. 4, Ep. 61. 

Counsel. — The Protestant Protest is founded 
wholly on a wrong conception of Catholic doc- 
trine. The Church has never permitted the 
" worshiping and adoration of images." Catho- 
lics simply respect and venerate the statues 
and relics of the saints or soldiers of Christ, in 
much the same manner that we all honor the 
monuments and remains of our country's mar- 
tyrs : the latter inspire patriotism and love of 
country ; the former inspire prayer and love of 
God. Images and paintings reach the soul 
through the sight, the noblest of the senses, 
as music does through the ear ; and who among 
Protestants would dispense with the faith-awak- 
ening powers of sacred music? Sculpture and 
painting, like music, are fine arts, and both 
should be devoted to God's service. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PURGATORY AND PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

Purgatory is the state in which those suffer 
for a time who die guilty of venial sins, or without 
having satisfied for the punishment due to their 
grievous sins. The faithful on earth can help the 
souls in Purgatory by their prayers. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

The Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory 
(and Prayers for the dead), is a fond thing, vainly 
invented, and grounded upon no warranty of 
Scripture, but rather repugnant to the Word of 
God.— Art. XXIl. 

TESTIMONY. 

2 Machabees xii. 43, 46 — "And making a 

gathering, he sent twelve thousand drachms of 

silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for 

214 



PURGATORY AND PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 215 

the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously 
concerning the resurrection — It is therefore a 
holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, 
that they may be loosed from their sins." 

Purgatory, or a middle state of souls, suffering 
for a time, on account of their sins, is proved by 
those many texts of Scripture, which affirm that 
God will " render to every man according to his 
works : " so that such as die in lesser sins shall 
not escape without punishment : for which also 
see St. Matthew xii. 36 — " But I say unto you, 
that every idle word that men shall speak, they 
shall render an account for it in the day of judg- 
ment." 

" Every idle word." This shows there must 
be a place of temporal punishment hereafter, 
where these slighter faults shall be punished. 

Apocalypse xxi. 27 — " There shall not enter 
into it any thing defiled, or any one that worketh 
abomination, or a lie ; but they who are written 
m the book of life of the Lamb." 

St. Matthew xii. 32— "And whosoever shall 
speak a word against the Son of man it shall 
be forgiven him : but he that shall speak against 



I 
216 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, 
neither in this world, nor in the world to come." 

" Nor in the world to come." From these words 
St. Augustin and St. Gregory gather, that some 
sins may be remitted in the world to come : and 
consequently that there is a purgatory or a 
middle place. 

1 Corinthians iii. 13, 14, 15 — "Every man's 
work shall be made manifest : for the day of the 
Lord shall declare it, because it shall be revealed 
by fire : and the fire shall try every man's work, 
of what sort it is. — If any man's work abide, 
which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a 
reward. — If any man's work burn, he shall suffer 
loss : but he himself shall be saved, yet so as by 
fire." 

1 Peter iii. 18, 19, 20— "Because Christ also 
died once for our sins, the just for the unjust, 
that he might offer us to God, being put to death, 
indeed, in the flesh, but brought to life by the 
Spirit. — In which also he came and preached to 
those spirits who were in prison : — Who in time 
past had been incredulous, when they waited for 
the patience of God in the days of Noe, when the 



PURGATORY AND PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 217 

ark was a building : in which a few, that is, eight 
souls, were saved by water." 

" Spirits in prison." See here a proof of a 
third place, or middle state of souls : for these 
spirits in prison, to whom Christ went to preach 
after his death, were not in heaven, nor yet in 
the hell of the damned; because heaven is no 
prison, and Christ did not go to preach to the 
damned. 

TertuUian. — (In speaking of the wife who sur- 
vives her husband.) " She should pray for her 
husband's soul, solicit for him refreshment, and 
offer on the anniversaries of his death." — Moore. 

Cyril of Jerusalem. — Then (in the Sacrifice of 
the Mass) we pray for the Holy Fathers and the 
Bishops that are dead ; and in short, for all those 
who are departed this life in our communion ; be- 
lieving that the souls of those, for whom the 
prayers are offered, receive very great relief, 
while this holy and tremendous Victim lies upon 
the altar." — Catech. Mystag. 5. 

Ambrose. — (In his Funeral Oration on the two 
Emperors, Valentians.) " Blessed shall you both 
be if my prayers can avail anything. No day 



218 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

shall pass, in which I will not mention you with 
honor ; no night in which you shall not partake 
of my prayers. In all my oblations I will remem- 
ber you.'^ 

Epiphanius. — " There is nothing more oppor- 
tune, nothing more to be admired, than the rite 
which directs the names of the dead to be men- 
tioned. They are aided by the prayer which is 
offered for them, though it may not cancel all 
their faults. — We mention both the just and sin- 
ners, in order that for the latter we may obtain 
mercy." — Haer. 55. 

Chrysostom — " It is not in vain that oblations 
and prayers are offered and alms given for the 
dead. So has the Divine Spirit ordained that we 
might mutually assist one another." — Homil. 21. 
"Not without reason was it ordained by the 
Apostles, that in celebrating the Sacred Myster- 
ies the dead should be remembered; for they 
well knew what advantage would thence be de- 
rived to them."— Homil. 3. in Epist. ad Philip. 

Ephrem.— (Of Edessa. In his Testament.) 
" My brethren, come to me, and prepare me for 
my departure, for my strength is wholly gone. 



PURGATORY AND PRAYERS FOR THE DEAD. 219 

Go along with me in psalms and in your prayers, 
and please constantly to make oblations for me. 
When the thirtieth day shall be completed, then 
remember me ; for the dead are helped by the of- 
ferings of the living. — Now listen with patience 
to what I shall mention from the Scriptures. 
Moses bestowed blessings on Reuben after the 
third generation (Deut. xxxiii. 6) ; but, if the dead 
are not aided, why was he blessed ? Again, if 
they be insensible, hear what the Apostle says : — 
' If the dead rise not again at all, why are they 
then baptized for them?' (1 Cor. xv. 29.)" 

Ambrose. — (Commenting on 1 Cor. iii. 13, 14, 
15.) "The Apostle said, 'He shall be saved, yet 
so as by fire,' in order that his salvation be not 
understood to be without pain. He shows that 
he shall be saved indeed, but that he shall under- 
go the pain of fire, and be thus purified ; not like 
the unbelieving and wicked man who shall be 
punished in everlasting fire." — Comment, in 1 Ep. 
ad Cor. 

St. Augustin. — " Some undergo temporal pun- 
ishment in this life only ; others after death ; and 
others both here and hereafter; yet all before 



220 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

that most severe and last judgment. But all who 
suffer temporal punishment after death, do not go 
into the eternal torments, which shall be the por- 
tion of some after the general judgment. For, as 
we have said before, what is not forgiven to some 
in this world, is forgiven them in the world to 
come ; (Matt. xii. 32.) that they may escape 
eternal torments." — August, Tom. 5, De Civitate 
Dei, lib. 21, c. 13. 

Counsel. — A Protestant writer (W. Mallock) 
says, " As to this doctrine of Purgatory — which 
has so long been a stumbling-block to the whole 
Protestant world — time goes on, and the view 
men take of it is changing. It is becoming fast 
recognized on all sides that it is the only doctrine 
that can bring a belief in future rewards and pun- 
ishments into anything like accordance with our 
notions of what is just and reasonable. So far 
from its being a superfluous superstition, it is seen 
to be just what is demanded at once by reason 
and morality, and a belief in it to be not only an 
intellectual assent, but a partial harmonizing of 
the whole moral ideal." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

CONTINENCY. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

The Church, speaking for Christ, and in ac- 
cordance with Holy Writ, requires her minis- 
ters to live a life of continency, for " he that is 
without a wife, is solicitous for the things that 
belong to the Lord, how he may please God." 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

Priests are not commanded by God's Law, 
either to vow the estate of single life, or to ab- 
stain from marriage. It is lawful for them to 
marry at their own discretion. — Art. XXXII. 

TESTIMONY. 

Continency possible, St. Matthew xix. 11, 12 — 

" All receive not this word, but they to whom it 

is given. — For there are eunuchs, who were born 

so from their mother's womb ; and there are 

221 



222 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

eunuchs, who have made themselves eunuchs for 
the kingdom of heaven's sake. He that can re- 
ceive it, let him receive it. 

" All receive not this word." That is, All re- 
ceive not the gift of living singly and chastely 
unless they pray for the grace of God to enable 
them to live so, and for some it may be neces- 
sary to that end to fast as well as pray : and to 
those it is given from above. 

" There are eunuchs, etc." This text is not to 
be taken in the literal sense ; but means, that 
there are such, who have taken a firm and com- 
mendable resolution of leading a single and chaste 
life in order to serve God in a more perfect state 
than those who marry : as St. Paul clearly shows 
1 Cor. chap. vii. 37, 38. 

The practice commended, 1 Cor. vii. 7, 8, 27, 38, 
40 — " For I would that all men were even as 
myself : But every one hath his proper gift from 
God ; one after this manner, and another after 
that. — But I say to the unmarried and to the 
widows : It is good for them if they so con- 
tinue, even as I. — Airt thou bound to a wife ? 
seek not to be loosed. Art thou loosed from a 



CONTINENCY. 223 

wife ? seek not a wife. — Therefore doth he that 
giveth his virgin in marriage, doeth well : and 
he that giveth her not, doeth better. — But more 
blessed shall she be, if she so remain, according 
to my counsel ; and I think that I also have the 
Spirit of God." 

" W^re even as myself." That is, that all em- 
braced the virtue of continence. 

Commended by Christ, Matt. xix. 27, 29. — 
" Then Peter answering, said to him : Behold we 
have left all things, and have followed thee : 
what therefore shall we have ?"..." And every 
one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, 
or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands 
for my name's sake ; shall receive an hundred- 
fold, and shall possess life everlasting." 

For reasons which particularly have place in 
the clergy, 1 Cor. vii. 32, 33, 35,— "But I would 
have you to be without solicitude. He that is 
without a wife, is solicitous for the things that 
belong to the Lord, how he may please God. — 
But he that is with a wife, is solicitous for the 
things of the world, how he may please his wife : 
and he is divided. — And this I speak for your 



224 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

profit : not to cast a snare upon you, but for that 
which is decent, and which may give you power 
to attend upon the Lord, without impediment." 

The breach of the vow damnable, 1 Timothy 
V. 12 — "Having damnation, because they have 
made void their first faith." 

" Their first faith." Their vow, by which they 
had engaged themselves to Christ. 

St. Siricius (Pope from 384 to 398).—" In his 
memorable Decretal letter to the bishops of 
Spain enforced the law of clerical celibacy with 
earnestness and vigor. Priests and deacons must 
abstain from all sexual intercourse, whether ^with 
wives married before ordination or with others. 

To such as had erred through ignorance in 
this regard Siricius allows condonation of the 
past on condition of future continence, though 
forbidding their promotion to any higher cleri- 
cal order : but such as defend the practice are 
to know themselves to be degraded from their 
oflBce, and forbidden ever again to officiate, by 
the authority of the Apostolical See. — The 
Anglican Dictionary of Christian Biography, Vol. 
Ill, p. 697. 



CONTINENCY. 226 

" Observe that Pope Siricius introduced no new 
legislation, but simply enforced existing canons." 
— Right Rev. Monsignor Loughlin. 

Jerome — " The apostles were either virgins, or 

men who after (one) marriage became continent ; 

and the persons now chosen for bishops, priests, 

and deacons, are either virgins or widowers, or at 

least men who remain chaste ever after they have 

been admitted to the priesthood " — Hierom., 
tom. 3. 

Epiphanius. — " The priesthood is for the most 
part composed of virgins ; and if not of virgins, 
at least of such as lead a single life. But if they 
who lead a single life be not sufficiently numer- 
ous to supply the ministry, then are admitted 
such as remain continent from their wives, or 
they who continue widowers after one marriage. 
For he that has married a second time, cannot 
be admitted to the priesthood ; although he who 
shall have remained a continent widower from 
the beginning, may hold the office of bishop, 
priest, deacon, and subdeacon." — Epiph. in fine 
Panarii. Comp. vera doctrina de fide Cath. et 
Apost. 



226 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

The law of the Western Church forbids per- 
sons livmg in the married state to be ordained, 
and persons in holy orders to marry. A careful 
distinction must be made between the principles 
on which the law of celibacy is based and the 
changes which have taken place in the applica- 
tion of the principle. 

The principles which have induced the Church 
to impose celibacy on her clergy are (a) that they 
may serve God with less restraint, and with un- 
divided heart (1 Cor. vii. 32) ; and (b) that, be- 
ing called to the altar, they may embrace the life 
of continence, which is holier than that of mar- 
riage. That continence is a more holy state than 
that of marriage is distinctly affirmed in the 
words of our blessed Lord : " There are eunuchs 
who have made themselves eunuchs for the king- 
dom of heaven's sake. He that can receive it, let 
him receive it." It is taught by St. Paul : " He 
that giveth his virgin in marriage doeth well, and 
he that giveth her not, doeth better," and by St. 
John. (Apoc. xiv. 4) Christian antiquity speaks 
with one voice on this matter, and the Council 
of Trent, (sess. 24. Can. 10) anathematizes those 



CONTINENCY. 227 

who deny that " it is more blessed to remain in 
virginity, or in celibacy, than to be joined in mar- 
riage." Thus all Catholics are bound to hold that 
celibacy is the preferable state, and that it is 
especially desirable for the clergy. It does not 
follow from this that the Church is absolutely 
bound to impose a law of celibacy on her 
ministers, nor has she, as a matter of fact, always 
done so. 

There does not seem to have been any Apos- 
tolic legislation on the matter, except that it was 
required of a bishop that he should have been 
only once married. In early times, however, we 
find a law of celibacy, though it is one that differs 
from the present Western law, in full force. 
Paphnutius, who at the Council of Mcsea re- 
sisted an attempt to impose a continent life on 
the clergy, still admits, that, according to ancient 
tradition, a cleric must not marry after ordina- 
tion. This statement is confirmed by the Apos- 
tolic Constitutions, which forbid bishops, priests, 
and deacons to marry, while the Apostolic canon 
contains the same prohibition. One of the ear- 
liest Councils, that of Neocaesarea (between 314- 



228 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

325) threatens a priest who married after ordi- 
nation with degradation to the lay state. Even 
a deacon could marry in one case only — if at his 
ordination he had stipulated for liberty to do so, 
as is laid down by the Council of Ancyra in 314. 
Thus it was the practice of the early Church to 
prohibit the marriage of those who were already 
priests, and this discipline is still maintained in 
the East. 

A change was made in the West by the 33d 
Canon of Elvira (in 305 or 306). It required 
bishops, priests, and all who served the altar, to 
live, even if already married, in continence. The 
Council of Nicaea refused to impose this law on 
the whole Church but it prevailed in the West. 
It was laid down by the Synod of Carthage in 
390, by Innocent I. 20 years later ; while Jerome 
(against Jovinian) declares that a priest who has 
"always to offer sacrifice for the people must 
always pray and therefore abstain from mar- 
riage." Leo, and Gregory the Great, and the 
Eighth Council of Toledo in 653, renewed 
the prohibitions against the marriage of sub- 
deacons. 



CONTINENCY. 2^9 

' So the law stood when Hildebrand, afterwards 
Gregory VII., began to exercise a decisive influ- 
ence in the Church. Leo IX, Nicholas II. and 
Hildebrand himself when he became Pope, issued 
stringent decrees against priests living in con- 
cubinage, they were forbidden to say Mass or 
even serve at the altar ; they were to be punished 
with deposition, and the faithful were warned 
not to hear their Mass. So far Gregory only 
fought against the corruption of the times, and it 
is mere ignorance to represent him as having 
established the law of celibacy. But about this 
time a change did occur in the canon law. A series 
of synods from the beginning of the twelfth 
century declared the marriages of persons in 
holy orders to be not only unlawful, but invalid. 
With regard to the persons in minor orders, they 
were allowed for many centuries to serve in the 
Church while living as married men. From the 
twelfth century, it was laid down that if they 
married they lost the privileges of the clerical 
state. However, Boniface VIII., in 1300, per- 
mitted them to act as clerics, if they had only 
been once married and then to a virgin, provided 



230 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

they had the permission of the bishop and wore 
the clerical habit. This law of Pope Boniface 
was renewed by the Council of Trent. The same 
Council again pronounced the marriage of clerks 
in holy orders null and void. At present, in the 
West a married man can receive holy orders only 
if his wife fully consents and herself makes a vow 
of chastity. If the husband is to be consecrated 
bishop, the wife must enter a religious order. 

We may now turn to the East, and sketch the 
changes w^hich the law of celibacy has undergone 
amongst the Greeks. In the time of the church 
historian Socrates (about 450) the same law of 
clerical celibacy which obtained among the Latins 
was observed in Thessaly, Macedonia, and Achaia. 
Further, the case of Synesius in 410 proves that 
it was unusual for bishops to live as married 
men, for he had, on his election as bishop, to 
make a stipulation that he would be allowed 
to live with his wife. (Catholic Dictionary — 
Celibacy). 

Counsel. — As regards celibacy among the clergy 
of the Catholic Church, we shall simply observe 
that in thus consecrating their whole lives to the 



CONTINENCY. 231 

work of God, they but imitate the virtue of 
the saints, and of the Great High Priest, Jesus 
Christ. 

We have given the doctrine of the Church on 
the matter of clerical celibacy at some length, 
because in the presentation of the case, our op- 
ponents have seen fit to say " That it is lawful 
for them (priests) to marry at their own dis- 
cretion." 

We have tried to prove by the very Scriptures 
that clerical celibrcy is not only possible, but that 
it was encouraged by no less a light in the early 
Church than the Apostle of the Gentiles, the 
great St. Paul. We have shown, that following 
the teaching of this Apostle, the Church in the 
early ages recommended clerical celibacy, and that 
when owing to the wickedness of the times and 
the abuses that gradually crept into the Church 
discipline, we find that priests did marry, that they 
were at first exhorted not to, and then later for- 
bidden to enter the marriage state, and that those 
who disobeyed this command lost any bene- 
fices to which they may have been entitled. 
Later we find the most stringent rules laid down 



232 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

against the marriage of priests, and this we find 
to be the custom in this our day. 

And, aside from the fact that it seems right 
and fitting that he who has been ordained a priest, 
and who has given up father, and mother, and 
sister, and brother for the sake of Christ, should 
live a single live as did the Master in whose foot- 
steps he is trying to follow, how can any man 
with a wife and mayhap a family give all his 
thought to the sacred duties which as a priest 
he is called upon daily, almost hourly, to perform ? 
Would not his very nature call upon him to think 
of and provide for the offspring that he has 
brought into the world, and in doing so would 
he not be offering God a divided service, a divided 
heart. In times of pestilence, or of other great 
dangers would his thoughts and his prayers and 
his ministrations be for those whom the Almighty 
has intrusted to his care or to the wife and family 
that he would have sworn to honor and provide 
for? Aside from the scriptural admonitions 
which the clergy have received to lead a life of 
celibacy, and the laws that have been enacted to 
cause them to live in that state, their very calling 



CONTINENCY. 233 

which has set them apart from other men, and 
for the service of God, would lead them to follow 
that course ; for " he that is without a wife, is 
solicitous for the things that belong to the Lord, 
how he may please God." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

FAITH. 
CATHOLIC CREED. 

To save our souls we must worship God by 
faith, hope, and charity. And the means insti- 
tuted by Christ to enable us to share in the fruits 
of His Redemption are the Church and the Sac- 
raments. 

PROTESTANT PROTEST. 

We are accounted righteous before God, only 
for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus 
Christ, by faith, and not for our own works or de- 
servings. Wherefore, that we are justified by 
faith alone, is a most wholesome doctrine, and 
very full of comfort. — Art. XI. 

TESTIMONY. 

True Faith necessary to salvation, St. Mark 

xvi. 16 — "He that belie veth, and is baptized 

shall be saved : but he that believeth not, shall 

be condemned." 

234 



FAITH. 235 

Counsel. — Note that in the above verse Christ 
speaks in the same manner as when He said to 
the Jews, " Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of 
man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life 
in you." (St. John vi. 54.) Therefore, if Faith and 
Baptism are necessary to salvation, the Sacrifice 
of the Altar is necessary to life everlasting. 

Acts iv. 12. — "Nor is there salvation in any 
other. For there is no other name under heaven 
given to men, whereby we must be saved." 

Hebrews xvi. 6 — " But without faith it is im- 
possible to please God. For he that cometh to 
God, must believe that he is, and is a rewarder of 
them that seek him." 

Faith without good works is dead, St. James 
ii. 14, 17, 19, 20, 24, 26—" What shall it profit, 
my brethren, if a man say he hath faith, but hath 
not works ? Shall faith be able to save him ? — 
Even so faith, if it have not works, is dead in 
itself. — Thou believest there is one God. Thou 
doest well : the devils also believe, and tremble. — 
But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith 
without works is dead ? — Do you see that by 
works a man is justified, and not by faith only? 



236 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

For even as the body without the spirit is dead, 
so also faith without works is dead." 

But Faith working by Charity, Galatians v. 6 — 
" For in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision avail- 
eth anything, nor uncircumcision ; but faith, 
which worketh by charity." 

Faith does not imply an absolute assurance of 
our being in grace, much less of our eternal sal- 
vation, Romans xi. 20 — " Well : because of unbe- 
lief they were broken off. But thou standest by 
faith ; be not high minded, but fear." 

" But fear." We see here that he who stand- 
eth by faith may fall from it ; and therefore must 
live in fear, and not in the vain presumption and 
security of modern sectaries. 

1 Corinthians ix. 27 — " But I chastise my body, 
and bring it into subjection : lest, perhaps, when 
I have preached to others, I myself should become 
reprobate." 

" I chastise," etc. Here St. Paul showed the 
necessity of self-denial and mortification, to sub- 
due the flesh and its inordinate desires 

Philippians ii. 12 — " Wherefore, my dearly be- 
loved, (as you have always obeyed not as in my 



FAITH. 237 

presence only, but much more now in my ab- 
sence), work your salvation with fear and trem- 
bling." 

" With fear," etc. This is against the false 
faith and presumptuous security of modern sect- 
aries. 

Romans iii. 28. — "For we account a man to 
be justified by faith without the works of the 
law." 

" By faith," etc. The faith, to which the apostle 
here attributes man's justification, is not a pre- 
sumptuous assurance of our being justified ; but 
a firm and lively belief of all that God has re- 
vealed or promised, Heb. xi. A faith working 
through charity in Jesus Christ, Gal. v. 6. In 
short, a faith which takes in hope, love, repen- 
tance, and the use of the Sacraments. And the 
works which he here excludes, are only the works 
of the law ; that is, such as are done by the law 
of nature, or that of Moses, antecedent to the 
faith of Christ, but by no means such as follow 
faith, and proceed from it. 

Counsel. — " Luther interpolated the word 
< alone ' in the foregoing verse of St. Paul, for the 



238 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

purpose of gaining, by this fraud, some sanction 
for his own doctrine of Justification, by making 
the Apostle assert that ' man is justified by faith 
alone^ He was detected, by Staphylus, Emser 
and others, in still further frauds on the text of 
the New Testament, and for the same party pur- 
pose. Thus, in the 6th verse of the Epistle of 
St. Paul to Philemon, he omitted the word ' work ' 
after the epithet 'good,' notwithstanding that 
this word was, as these critics assert, in the 
famous Complutensian edition, as well as in the 
old editions, in Latin, of Robert Stephen." — 
Moore. 

Martin Bucer. — (one of Luther's disciples), thus 
describes the immediate practical consequences of 
this doctrine — Justification by Faith alone, with- 
out Works : " The greater part of the people 
seem only to have embraced the Gospel, in order 
to shake off the yoke of discipline, and the obli- 
gation of fasting, penance, etc., which lay upon 
them in the time of Popery, and to live at their 
pleasure, enjoying their lust and lawless appe- 
tite without control. They therefore lend a will- 
ing ear to the doctrine that we are justified by 



FAITH. 239 

faith alone, and not by good works, having no 
relish for them." — De Regn. Christ. 

Luther. — (In his work de Servo Arbitrio.) 
" God works the evil in us as well as the good ; 
that the perfection of faith is to believe that God 
is just, though by his own will he renders us 
necessarily worthy of damnation, so as to seem 
to take pleasure in the torments of the miser- 
able." 

Simon Magus. — "God is the cause of all sin 
and wickedness, as having himself, with his own 
hands, created man of such a nature as, by its 
own proper movement, and the impulse of a nec- 
essary A^ill, is neither able nor willing to do any- 
thing but sin." — Vincent of Lerins, Comm. c. 34* 

Calvin. — "Though Adam has destroyed him- 
self and his posterity, yet we must attribute the 
corruption and the guilt to the secret judgment of 
God." — Calvin, Respons ad. Columna. 

Szydlovius. (A Calvinist of the seventeenth 
century.) — "I myself acknowledge that, accord- 
ing to the common custom of thinking, it seems 
too crude to say, ' God can command perjury; 
blasphemy, lies, etc,' — and can also command 



240 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TEIAL. 

that * he shall not himself be worshiped, loved, 
honored, etc.' — Yet all this is most true in itself." 
— Vindiciae Qaaest. aliquot, etc. 

Counsel. — Wo have shown in the preceding 
chapters, that every article of the Catholic faith 
is built upon the strongest foundation ; we have 
thus completely refuted the charge made by 
Protestants that some of the Catholic beliefs are 
superstitions. " Now there remain," says St. 
Paul (Cor. xiii. 13), " faith, hope, charity, these 
three ; but the greatest of these is charity, '^'^ Is 
not charity a love of God and man? Is not 
charity sorrowful for having offended God ? 
does not charity perform good works ? Is not 
charity humble and obedient? Is not then, a 
love of God, — manifested in repentance, in con- 
trition, in alms-giving, and in prayer and sacri- 
fice, — greater than faith? "The devils in hell 
also BELIEVE," (St. James ii. 19), but it avail- 
eth them nothing, for their days of " works," 
(James ii. 20) and of " charity " (Gal. v. 6) are 
over, and there is no life in their faith (James ii. 
17. 



CLOSING ADDRESS. 

Just a few words ere we conclude. We have 
tried to present our case logically, fairly, and 
comprehensively, within the limits of a small 
volume. Before you retire to deliberate on a 
verdict which may be of momentous influence in 
shaping the future course of your immortal self, 
we shall make a few more arguments touching 
the vital issues of the case. On one side we have 
the several hosts of Protestantism, and on the 
other the Catholic Church. If one of these 
bodies be of Divine origin and the other of her- 
etical origin, it should not require much reason- 
ing to determine which is right. That which is 
Divine must be able (1) to furnish proof of the 
Bible's inspiration, and (2) to demonstrate that it 
is possessed of infallible teaching authority. 

A few years hence our bodies shall be cold in 

the sleep of death. Even now the grim monster 

is silently preparing our funeral march. Soon 

241 



242 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

all that is earthly of us shall be laid in the dismal 
tomb. The social pleasures, the commanding 
wealth, the public honors, the rich blessings of 
health and physical perfection, the fond ties of 
friendship and kindred, all the coveted objects of 
our proud ambitions, all these must be left behind 
— for what ? Geology teaches us one great truth : 
the earth was once a molten mass, and conse- 
quently there was a time when man was not. The 
first man was not born ; he was created, and his 
Creator was God. If then He is the origin of 
life, it needs no argument to prove him the 
Master of death. But why must we die, or^ 
rather, why do we live, when all that we live for 
" shall pass away " ? Because the soul is immor- 
tal, and it is endowed with free will to choose 
death or life everlasting. To test its eternal 
fitness, it is for a brief while clothed in a mortal 
shroud and subjected to the temptations of the 
flesh and the world. It may be so encompassed 
by the licentious indulgences of human passions 
as to have no active communication with the king- 
dom of grace ; it may be so ensnared by the glam- 
our and worship of the world's idols as not to 



CLOSING ADDRESS. 243 

be cognizant of the true purpose of its destiny ; it 
may be so blinded by bigotry or hatred as to be 
unable to perceive the single way of truth : never- 
theless to-morrow it shall be judged ! 

That we might always know the truth, the way 
of salvation, Christ established a permanent 
repository wherein " His word shall never pass 
away." This repository we call the Church ; and 
those who are ordained to teach the truth and to 
disseminate it among the people, are called 
priests, or ministers. And if we desire to be saved 
we must " hear this truth, the Word of God, and 
keep it." Christ spoke to the multitudes ; and 
His priests are henceforth " to teach all nations," 
telling them of "the things which they have 
seen and heard?"" Nowhere has Christ com- 
manded a word of His to be written or that it 
be committed to writing. Whether addressing 
His followers personally or through the voice of 
His ministers, He commands them " to hear His 
word." " As my Eather hath sent me I send you," 
is the commission He gives, and " behold I am 
with you all days even to the consummation of 
the world ; " thus delivering His sacred teachings 



244 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

by word of mouth from generation to generation, 
by Tradition, and promising the Spirit of Truth 
to remain with His Church forever, as a guarantee 
of its inerrancy. The Catholic Church is the 
only one which claims to be the Guardian of 
the truths thus handed down. In addition 
to these traditionary deposits, she has for 
nineteen ages preserved and taught the truths 
contained in the inspired books, or evangelical 
account of the life and teachings of her Divine 
Founder. However much Protestants imagine 
that Catholics contemn the Holy Scriptures, they 
must at least acknowledge that they took their 
Bible from the Roman Catholic Church. Of 
course they have extirpated some of the books, 
and modified passages in the others, but the fact 
remains that they received the Scriptures origin- 
ally from the Catholic Church. Dr. Maitland, 
a learned Protestant essayist, says: "To say 
nothing of parts of the Bible, or of books whose 
place is uncertain, we know of at least twenty 
different editions of the whole Latin Bible, printed 
in Germany alone before Luther was born 
(1483) " ; And, " Before Luther was born the Bible 



CLOSING ADDRESS. 245 

had been printed in Rome, Naples, Florence and 
Placenza ; and Venice alone had furnished eleven 
editions." — Dark Ages, p. 460. Reuss, a leading 
rationalist of Germany, says : " No book was so 
frequently published, immediately after the first 
invention of printing (1454), as the Latin Bible, 
more than one hundred editions of it being struck 
off before the year 1520." — Die Geschichte der 
heiligen Schriften, N. T., page 1527. 

But let us search for the two proofs, above 
mentioned, of the True Church ; and first, the 
Bible's inspiration. On the inspiration of the 
Sacred Book depends all its doctrinal value, and if 
the Protestant teachers cannot compel an implicit 
faith in its Divine authorship, it must eventually 
fail as a foundation of their religion, which 
prophecy is being rapidly verified by the effects of 
the present day " Higher Criticism." In the Book 
itself there is not a word to show that Christ 
ordered or desired it to be written, much less did 
our Saviour write it Himself. Now, if He in- 
tended to perpetuate His teachings solely in this 
way, we should reasonably suppose He would have 
transcribed them Himself or personally supervised 



246 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

the task before His ascension. Besides, we know 
that Christ remained several days on earth after 
His resurrection, instructing His disciples in the 
knowledge of truth and the way of salvation, of 
the identity of which instructions Holy Writ is 
totally ignorant. And again, Christianity was 
over a hundred years old before the Bible was 
composed. But granting that the Protestant 
version appears to be the true one, that is not 
legal or satisfactory proof that it is. Catholicism, 
we know, was more than fourteen hundred years 
in existence before the Reformation. How, ask 
yourself, could the Reformers know that the 
Bible was not a gigantic fraud perpetrated by an 
" idolatrous church " — as they termed the Catho- 
lic Church at that time ? Protestants have re- 
nounced the only proof there is, to wit. Tradition ; 
therefore they have lost all assurance that the 
Bible is inspired : which reduces the foundation 
of their creeds to a mere presumption on their 
part. 

Another incurable weakness of Protestantism 
is, that it has no infallible, and therefore trust- 
worthy, teaching authority. Protestants admit 



CLOSING ADDRESS. 247 

quite candidly, though indirectly, that they may 
err and that they may be erring. The Reformers 
have declared that " for eight hundred years and 
more the whole of Christendom was drowned in 
abominable idolatry." But how do you know 
they speak the truth, when by their very tirade 
against the old Church they assume a condition 
that would make the whole of Christendom liable 
to err and afford us no possible knowledge of 
when it would be erring ? As we have shown, 
their faith rests upon a presumption, and their ex- 
position of Divine truth rests upon human in- 
struments; which conditions assuredly deprive 
them of immediate communion with the Kingdom 
of God. 

The Roman Catholic Church is One, because it 
has but one communion, one head, and one faith. 
It is Holy, because its children in all ages have 
been noted for their eminent holiness, and all the 
saints have lived and died within its fold. It is 
Catholic, because it is permanent, and it is spread 
all over the earth. It is Infallible, because it has 
never erred in deciding questions of faith and 
morals ; in truth, it contains the only tribunal 



248 THE CHURCH OF GOD ON TRIAL. 

which has existed on earth for so many centuries 
Avithout ever having reversed any of its own 
decisions. It is Apostolical, because it has a 
continuous succession of pastors reaching from 
the Apostles, as is best exemplified in its long, 
unbroken chain of Supreme Pontiffs. These are 
the principal marks and attributes by which the 
True Church may be known. And they are to 
be found in the Roman Catholic Church only. 



Columlmjs Hibrart* 



An excellent collection of Books for the young. Printed 
from good clear type. Neatly bound in cloth. Arms of 
Columbus stamped on the cover. 

Any of the following will be sent postpaid on receipt of 
price. 



Angrels' Visits. 

By the author of " Tales from the Diary of a Sister of 
Mercy." Price 25c, 

Atig:el Dreams. 

A series of Catholic Tales for Children, by a Sister of 
Mercy. Price 25c. 

Eeautiftil IVittle Rose and the Muffin Girl. 

An interesting story for girls. Price 25c. 

Emma's Cross, 

And other stories. Price 25c. 

Frederick Wilmot. 

A Painting and its Mission. A book to be read by boys 
and girls. Price 25c. 

Harry O'Brien, and Other Tales. 

A very interesting book for boys. Price 25c. 

Honor O' Moore's, 

Their homes and other stories. Price 25c. 

Joe Baker; or, The One Church, 

A story for boys and girls. Price 25c. 

The Young: Astronomer. 

And other stories for boys. Price 25c. 

The Two Painters. 

A tale for the young. Price 25c. 

The Chapel of the Angels. 

A delightful story for the young. Price 25c. 

Young Bmigrants. 

An interesting book for young folks. Price 25c. 

Adventure of Travel. 

A story for the young. Price 25c. 



Zbc Stiver Series. 

A series of Catholic Books exquisitely bound in fine cloth. 
Postpaid on receipt of price. 

A Pilg^rimage to the I^and of Cid. 

Translated from the French of Frederick Ozanam. 

Price 45c. 

Catherine Hamilton. 

A tale for girls. Price 45c. 

Father Rowland. 

A North American Tale. Price 45c. 

Hnmility ; or, l/ove of Self-Contempt. 

By Father Franchi. 361 pages. Price 45c. 

** Henrietta '» ; or, The Home of the I^ost Child. 

Story of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Price 45c. 

Oenevive. 

A tale of antiquity, showing the wonderful ways of Provi- 
dence in the protection of innocence. From theGerman of 
Christopher Von Schmid. With many illustrations. 

Price 45c. 

Glory and Sorrow, 

Or, the Consequences of Ambition. Translated from the 
French. Price 45c. 

Imitation of the Blessed Virgrin. 

In four books. Illustrated. Price 45c. 

Xamp of the Sanctuary. 

A beautiful Catholic story, by Cardinal Wiseman. 

Price 50c. 
I/ives of the Fathers of the Desert. 

New edition. Illustrated. Price 45c. 

Stories of the Seven Virtues. 

Humility, Liberality, Chastity, Meekness, Temperance, 
Brotherly Love, Diligence, By Agnes M. Stewart. 216 
pages. Price 45c. 

Soul on Calvary. 

Meditating on the suffering of Jesus Christ, and finding 
at the foot of the Cross consolation in her troubles. With 
prayers, practices and examples on various subjects. 294 
pages. Price 45c. 

The Story of a Vocation. 

How it came and what came of it. Translated from 
the French. Price 45c. 

2 



OC^iumph of Religion ; 

Or, a choice selection of Edifying Narratives. Compiled 

from various authors. By Rev. James Fitton. 216 pages. 

Fine cloth. Price 45c. 

Virtuous Villager. 

The History of Louisa, the Pious Country Girl, whose 
Edifying Life is filled with Useful Instruction. 212 pages, 
i8mo. Fine cloth. Price 45c. 

I/ife of St. Stanislaus. 

Especially written for the young. Price 45c. 

The Two Schools. 

A beautiful Catholic Tale by Mrs. Hughes. Price 45c. 

Maggie's Rosary and the White Angel. 

By E. Bowles. Price 45c 

popular SSoofts, 

Any of the following books will be sent postpaid on 
receipt of price. 

Diary of a Sister of Mercy, 

Cloth bound. Price 75c. 

Nora Brady's Vow. 

A beautiful Catholic tale. By Mrs. Anna H. Dorsey. 

Price 75c. 
Fleurange. 

By Mme. Augustus Craven. The reception this tale 
has met with is very flattering. It commended itself to the 
favorable judgment of the London Saturday Reviem^ and 
other authorities of like critical acumen, and has been 
crowned by the French Academy. Price 80c. 

Father Mack. 

This is a beautiful Story written by a noted Humorist, 
Leo Gregory, and is bound in fine linen cloth. Price 75c. 

Glimpses of Pleasant Homes. 

A Few Tales for Youth. By a Member of the Order of 
Mercy. 236 pp., i2mo, cloth. Price 75c. 

Invitation Heeded, The. 

Reasons for a Return to Catholic Unity. By James 
Kent Stone. Price 75c. 

The above is the title of one of the best and most effec- 
tive controversial works which we have had the pleasure to 
read for some time. For those who believe in any histori- 

3 



cal Christianity, the argument contained in it is direct and 
unanswerable. 
Seven Gates of Heaven ; 

Or, the Teachings, Disciplines, Customs, and Manners of 
Administering the Sacraments by all Denominations. Sim- 
ply explained for the People. Superbly Illustrated. 472 
pages 8vo., fine cloth. Price $2.00. 

Teadiing Truth by Sigfns and Ceremonies ; 

Fifty-first Edition. One of the most popular books of our 
times. Illustrated with twenty-one beautiful engravings. 

Price $1.00. 

Great Cathedrals and Most Celebrated Churches of the 
World. 

Giving their Founders, Patrons, Builders and Architects, 
with a Complete History of Each up to our time. Beauti- 
fully Illustrated by the most Eminent Artists. 485 pages, 
octavo, fine cloth. Price ^3.00. 

Man the Mirror of the Universe ; 

Or, the Agreement of Science and Religion. 375 pages, 
i2rao, cloth. Price ^i.oo. 

Christ's Kingdom on ^arth ; 

Or, the Church and her Divine Constitution, Organiza- 
tion, and Framework. With seventy beautiful engravings, 
octavo, fine cloth. Price $2.50. 

Festal Year ; 

Or, the Origin, History, Ceremonies and Meanings of 
the Sundays, Seasons. Feasts, and Festivals of the Church 
During the Year. Illustrated with numerous engravings. 
i2mo., cloth. Price $1.00. 

Kotes of a Missionary Priest in the Rocky Mountains. 

Illustrated with Eight half-tone engravings, by Rev. J. J. 
Gibbons. Price 75c. 

«* On the Threshold of I/ife.'» 

By Rev. J. GuiBERT. Just published. Cloth. Price 50c 

Trowel and Cross, 

And other Catholic Stories. By Bolanden. Octavo. 
218 pages. Cloth. Price 75c. 



CHRISTIAN PRESS ASSOCIATION PUBLISHING 

COMPANY, 

26 Barclay Street, New York. 

4 



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